USA > Maine > Lincoln County > Waldoboro > History of old Broad Bay and Waldoboro, Volume 1 > Part 63
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8Sprague's Journal, XII, 22.
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HISTORY OF OLD BROAD BAY AND WALDOBORO
Waldoborough was John Head who received his appointment January 1, 1795. This same year Head had bought of Jacob Achorn, who had recently removed to Thomaston, the one-hun- dred acre lot bounded on the east by the lower falls, on the south by the County Road, and on the west by House Place (Kaler) Pond in Nobleborough, old Lot No. 2 under the Waldo grants. At the top of the hill on the site of the old town house the Head brothers, John and Joshua, had their store, and this store was the first post office in the town.
In 1799 the Court of Common Pleas, through the influence of Samuel S. Wilde, a competent attorney of Warren, was moved to that town. Wilde had practiced law a short time in Waldo- borough and had moved to Warren in 1794. Though the town had lost the court, it acquired a customhouse by an Act of Congress approved March 31, 1789. The first inspector of revenue was Waterman Thomas, whose commission was dated June 13, 1795. The customhouse was a small wooden building located on the east side of the Slaigo brook at the foot of Thomas' Hill. At this time this general location was one of the two points compet- ing to be the ultimate business center of the town. In later years, long after Squire Thomas' incumbency of the office, the building was moved to East Waldoborough by a member of the Wade family and made into a house.9
The decade of the 1790's was filled with fiscal troubles for the town. It was an era of house cleaning. The practice, mentioned in an earlier chapter, of a town officer using public funds for personal purposes had come to Waldoborough with the Puritans, and the Germans had adopted the practice from them in good faith. It was in general use for many years without causing any great amount of questioning. In the 1790's the town awoke to the fact that it was undergoing losses and that their cumulative effect was considerable. As the whole question was brought into the open it became clear that there was hardly a tax collector or a town treasurer that was not involved. So it came to pass that the town officers set about putting an end to the practice and cleaning up the mess, and in so doing, going back many years, calling all the ancient offenders to an accounting, and collecting monies long due the town.
Action was begun in 1792 against Caleb Howard and on May 7th of that year it was voted "to accept ten dollars and two shillings of Caleb Howard in the rome [place ] of the paper money he sent and sold att Boston which he tooke for taxes committed to him to collect in this town." At the same Town Meeting the committee of the selectmen made up of Jacob Ludwig and Cap-
›Oral narrative of Mr. Sheldon Simmons.
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tain Stephen Andrew for "settling with the Collectors" submitted its report as follows:
Having given notice to Capt. Charles Samson and Waterman Thomas, Esq., to meet at Mr. Samson's house we proceeded to business and we find there is due to Mr. Samson from the town the sum of £9 12s. 3d., but Esquire Thomas could not settle having no receipt from Mr. Whiting for his ministerial tax. ... Having given due notice to Capt. Cornelius Turner, Mr. Hibner [Heavener] and to Mr. John Fitz- gerald to meet at Mr. George Clouse's house, we proceeded to business and we find due to the town from Capt. Cornelius Turner the sum total of his bills, viz., State tax, £57 12s., School tax, £30 0s. 10d., with addition of two pools [polls], 4s. 10d. We find by a former settlement that there is due to the town of Mr. Habner [Heavener] the sum of £7 8s. 9d. We find there is due the town from Mr. John Fitzgerald 12s. We find due from Capt. John Ulmer to ye town £4 12s. 9d. By a former settlement there is due to the town from Mr. Ludwig Kastner the sum of 10s., and the State tax which was committed in the year 1778, £19 8s. 11d. May the fifth. Mr. Caleb Howard appeared and but he says he could not find his bills, for he sayeth Esquire Thomas had them to assess the ar- rearage [acreage] and cannot find them now, but he sayeth he sold the paper money he had Belonging to the town for the sum of £3 2s., which he is ready to pay the town if they will accept the same. We find Mr. Burnaham's [Bornemann?] state tax number 8 for the year 1790 the sum of £19 due to the town, on the surplus of said taxes £2 11s. 111/2d., exclusive of his fees due to the town, also on a surplus on a State tax No. 9, and County tax No. 4, for the year, viz., the sum of £4 3s. 8d. We find there is Mr. Capt. Vinel's of money belonging to the town the sum of £19 12s. 2d., which Dr. Sheppard [Schaeffer] carried to Boston to pay the treasurer with, but did not doe itt, but brought the money back and paid itt to Capt. Vinel and there it remains yet.
Waldoborough, March ye 31, 1792
This day settled with Capt. David Vinel from the year 1783 to this day and find a Ballence due ye town from ye Vinel Collection the sum of 62 pounds, five shillings and one penney Lawful money.
Jacob Ludwig Stephen Andrew Comm. of Selectmen
Considering the size of the town budget in these years these conventional peculations really totalled an impressive amount. This fact doubtless led the voters to persist in demanding a complete settlement. Hence on April 15, 1793, the following article ap- peared in the warrant: "To see what measures the town will take concerning a sum of money which is due from several collectors and from Dr. Sheffer receiving money from our treasurer to be paid to the treasurer of this Commonwealth and never performed." At the next meeting it was voted "to choose a committee of three men to search into the affair concerning Mr. Ludwig Castner's affair about his taxes and his Receipte, what he has paid and to whom, etc. Committee Esquire Ludwig, Capt. Turner and Dr. Brown." May 5, 1794 "Voted .. . to file a Petition ... Praying for a Resolve to order Ludwig Casner to pay in the Town Treasury £19 18s. 11d., which money has been paid to said Castner, 1778."
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As these matters dragged along toward a settlement a climax was reached unexpectedly in this conventional fiscal laxity on the part of town officers in positions of financial responsibility. In March 1795 John Christopher Wallizer "bid off the taxes for six- pence on the pound," and in 1796 he was authorized to collect the taxes of the whole town at 4d. and a half-penny per pound, and continued as collector until the autumn of 1797. At this time his apparent peculations caught up with him, and in the warrant of November 20, 1797, an article was listed
to see what measures the town will take respecting one of their collec- tors who be difficant in payment of the several sums Committed to him to collect to a considerable amount. To see if they will chuse a Collector in the stead of John Christopher Wallizer who says he cannot Produce sufficant bonds for his Collection, and in consequence of which he has returned his tax bills.
The selectmen rendered a detailed report on the collections of Mr. Wallizer for the year 1795 and found a balance of col- lected money in his hands of $149.03. In 1796 it was worse, and the town officers reported for the past two years the whole sum due from him to the town was $685.99. The treasurer was ordered "to issue his execution against John Christopher Wallizer, col- lector for the years 1795 and 1796, for all sums due to the town from him on the several assessments committed to him to collect."
A committee made up of Robert Turner, Thomas McGuyer, Cornelius Turner, and John Fitzgerald was appointed to make a thorough investigation and to secure redress. It reported on De- cember 23, 1797, that the amount missing, including town, county, and state taxes, was $756.80 and 9 mills. Counsel was sought of an attorney in Wiscasset and on his advice an attachment was placed on Wallizer's real estate. A petition was submitted to the county and state for a stay of execution against the town for the amount of tax due these units. The town then voted power to the select- men and treasurer "to attend on the sale of John C. Wallizer's land and let the same be bid off to any purchaser ... or do any other matter or thing that to them may appear prudent in the premises."
This was a serious matter for Mr. Wallizer, for land was a man's most precious asset and, in this period, the main source of his wealth, in fact his living. To save Wallizer his land William Kaler and Friedrich Hahn went his bonds for payment of the amount due. This solution was little better than a gesture, for on June 9, 1800, it was voted "that execution be taken out as soon as may be against John Christop Wallizer and his bondsmen, and that the selectmen call a meeting before said execution is levied. Voted that Thomas McGuyer be agent for the town to prosecute
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the action against John C. Wallizer and others now pending at the Supreme Judicial Court." Again the voters relented and voted at a November meeting "that a time of four years be allowed Christop Wallizer, William Kaler and Friedrich Hahn to pay the debt they owe this town, to be paid in four payments to be made annually, they to give separate confessions before a Justice of the Peace with sufficant bondsmen."
In the meantime the town raised each year a sum to amortize its debt hereby incurred to county and state. By 1803 Kaler and Hahn had in part at least met their obligation to the town as Wallizer's bondsmen, but in 1805 Hahn was still somewhat in arrears in his payments and the town voted "that execution against Frederik Hahn be levied." This episode of Wallizer's default in- volved such substantial sums and met with such uninterrupted publicity, that it practically put an end to the conventional mode of handling public funds by public officials which had arisen in an older day, and closed such episodes in the town's fiscal history.
The influx of the Puritans into the Waldoborough area - a continuous stream since 1769 - had without question given the town an educational and cultural lift in line with the Massachu- setts pattern of life. This was slowly making itself felt in school affairs, and was inducing slow cultural changes among some of the Germans. As a part of this trend, something akin to a rotating library was established in the town in 1793. It was known as the Friendly Society,10 an organization of citizens of this and adjacent towns to foster the circulation of books, which would be owned and used by the subscribers in common. Among the local men contributing funds for this purpose were Joshua Head, John Head, Zebedee Simmons, David Vinal, Philip M. Ulmer, Peter Creamer, and Benjamin Brown, £1 8s., each; Waterman Thomas, £6; George Ulmer, £1 12s .; Charles Samson, £2; and John Paine, £2.
The subscribers held their first meeting at the house of Captain Stephen Andrews on May 6th, and Waterman Thomas was chosen librarian. The Society flourished and meetings were held regularly here and in neighboring towns. New members were added and public address fostered. In a few years the Society broke up into town units and continued its work. In Waldobor- ough it became known as "The Library Company of the Town of Waldoborough" and functioned actively for more than two decades. In the second decade of the new century one share each, costing $5.00, was taken by Gorham Parks, Avery Rawson, Joshua Head, Benjamin Brown, W. R. Webb, O. D. Richardson, James Groton, Thomas P. Sproul, Henry J. Manning, Payn Elwell, Betsey Farley, Isaac G. Reed, John Hale, Philip Keizer, David W.
10Eaton, Annals of Warren, p. 247.
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Mitchell, Samuel Morse, George Clouse, Jr., and J. L. Stevens.11 The almost complete absence of German names from this list is significant as it certainly reflects a decline in their cultural influ- ence. The lists themselves are significant as affording a clue to the extent of a reading public in the town in the 1790's and showing those in whose lives books were a need strong enough to induce an outlay of cash.
The 1790's was clearly a period of change in outward prac- tice and in inner viewpoint and feelings. In the more densely populated sections along the river, the Germans were in many ways becoming Americans, while in the back-districts the old feudal modes persisted strongly due to the lack of contacts be- tween river and back-district folk. German was still spoken in both areas, but the river Germans had become bilingual. The changes in this period were manifest in all ways. The town was taking its first steps toward industrialization; agriculture was ad- vancing and carts and ploughs were coming into more general use. People were travelling and carrying light burdens on horse- back. This method served to get a bag of wheat or corn quickly to the gristmill, or a keg of rum or molasses home. "Riding double," the man in the saddle and the "missus" on the pillion behind him, was the prevailing way of getting to church or to a frolic. Sleighs and pungs were just coming into use for winter travel, and footstoves were used on such journeys, as well as at church.
This decade was also the period of frame houses. In the river section they were rising everywhere, while the log cabin still remained the typical domicile of the back-districts. Carpets, rugs, and sofas were not yet widely used, but nice furniture was finding its way into nice houses, while crude handmade pieces were the general order in simpler abodes. The whitest and wid- est boards were used for the floors, which were smoothed and scoured with white sand and swept with brooms made from the trunks of yellow birch or the twigs of hemlock and spruce. The kitchens were places of many dressers, shelves, and cupboards which were adorned with such pewter as the housewife possessed. Cooking dishes were of iron and all meals were prepared at the open hearth, and the baking done once or twice a week in the brick ovens. Crockery was replacing the wooden dishes of the Revolution, and was of crude, heavy ware made of clay in local potteries. The tallow candle, too, in spots was on the way out and spermaceti, oil, and lamps made of tin, brass, or other metal were by way of taking their place. The gentlemen still wore
11Subscription papers at one time in possession of Carroll T. Cooney, Jr., Waldo- boro, Me.
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their hair in clubs or queues; the newer petticoat trousers and leather breeches were being introduced by the better dressed to replace the older French pantaloons, but the attire of an older day was still commonly worn by the older and more conservative folk.
With the development of industrial centers in the communi- ties and the influx of so many new people, social practice and moral codes underwent a change. Mutual aid was giving way to paid services. The practices of sharing on butchering days or when a kill was made in the forest, and of borrowing and lending with no thought of balancing accounts was no longer as common as of yore, and neighbors began to pay for the use of oxen, horses, carts, and ploughs. Tea and coffee were in regular use by all whose wealth made such luxuries accessible, and even the older moderation in drinking was no longer the virtue it once was. The numerous taverns in the town were becoming social centers where the leisured and the poor would gather of an evening over their cups or a game of cards. Any enterprise that wound up in a social gathering was still highly popular. Spinning-bees, wool-breakings, corn huskings, barn raisings, wood-haulings, chopping-bees, launchings, and militia musters usually ended with men joining women, or vice versa, for a frolic or a dance in the evening, and friends would come from far and near. In the earlier days nearly everyone had lived on the uniform level of poverty, and the first inequalities of fortune gave rise to no invidious social distinctions. There were at first no upper and lower classes in the local society, but by now the first faint lines of social cleavage were forming, and the power of money, dress, and social connections was be- ginning to produce envy and emulation and to exercise in gen- eral a divisive influence, a trend which was destined to become more and more apparent in the next century.
In these days the leading German figure in the community was Jacob Ludwig. He was a shrewd, thrifty, intelligent, and ambitious man, entirely self-educated. From the first he had realized that Waldoborough would become an English community, and in consequence had set himself to a mastery of the language, law, practices, and ways of English life. This knowledge made him a leader among his people and in the 1790's he was the community factotum. The record of his activities he kept most carefully in a diminutive script in a famous little book generally known as "Jacob Ludwig's Note Book."12 This book is largely a record of his business proceedings and can be easily read with the aid of a reading glass. His busy and important life was rooted in the fact
12Jacob Ludwig, Accounts and Memoranda, mss. (Maine Historical Society, Port- land, Me.).
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HISTORY OF OLD BROAD BAY AND WALDOBORO
that his fellow Germans were still to a large degree an alien popu- lation, limited in education and too unfamiliar with English insti- tutions to handle their own business and legal affairs. Further- more, there was no lawyer permanently in residence in the town, and if there had been one he would have had to be bilingual in order to handle the legal business of a German constituency. As it was, Jacob Ludwig met such requirements and commanded the confidence of the German population which no English attorney
50
THE OLD JACOB LUDWIG HOMESTEAD .1790
in these years could possibly have acquired. Hence he had all their business, and there was much of it. As justice of the peace Ludwig wrote wills, bonds, deeds; drew up notes; collected monies; made trips to other towns to transact business for his clients; wrote letters; ran sights on land; traded in local and im- ported produce; took depositions; issued warrants and summonses; computed interest; administered oaths; performed marriages; com- puted taxes; settled estates; drew up mortgages; executed writs, and appraised property. For each little service there was a little charge and the total was impressive.
The entries in this notebook possess considerable cultural interest as an index to the life of the period. There was literally
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something doing every day, but only a few phases of this activity can be mentioned here. They follow:
June 3, 1790, John Trowbridge, for examining witnesses and taking testimony fee.
July 10, 1790, Susaman Abrahams,13 fine for breaking the Sabbath, 5s. Christopher Newbit complains against Susaman Abrahams for break- ing the Sabeth last winter by writing [wanting to write] a letter and senting for said Newbit to have the letter wrote.
Lorenz Sides, 1 quart of rum, 1s. 6d., 1 bu. wheat, 6s., 1 bu. barley, 3s. To one day going to Goose River, 6s.
Nov. 26, 1793, Conrad Heyer complaining of himself for breaking the peace with Georg Weber, 5s.
In these days the air was charged with litigation. Action and counteraction on the part of nearly everybody was constant. The following entries are typical of this condition:
July 18, 1796, George Clouse, - to writ vs Oberlock, 6s; to writ vs Orff, 4s. 6d .; to writ vs Stahl, 4s. 6d.
Sept. 1796, to Caleb Howard. To John Creamer's writ vs your son, 6s .; To a writ vs Brown, 4s. 6d .; to settling accounts between you and Raser, 3s .; March 5, 1798, To a fine, Lincoln complaint, 6s.
Frederick Hahn to Jacob Ludwig, Dr., to breaking my plough, dam- ages, 6s.
From this notebook can be gleaned much genealogical data, especially in reference to the more inconspicuous figures seldom mentioned in other records, for example, a reference to Isaac Sar- gus (Sarges) showing he was still living in 1809. Also in the matter of computations there are interesting data on tax rates and tax totals. Among Ludwig's clients most of these are in the lower brackets, and range from many around the $2.00 figure in the taxes up to Charles Samson, the most affluent of Ludwig's patrons, whose taxes in the 1790's were computed as follows: state and county tax, $6.49, ministerial tax $9.79, school and town tax, $17.29. Total $33.52. Captain Samson, it should be noted, was one of the large property holders of the town.
When Isaac G. Reed located at Waldoboro in 1808, he apparently spotted Ludwig as the most useful single adjunct to his law practice because of the latter's range of contacts and the con- fidence he inspired among the Germans. The cooperation between the two men increased over the years. Ludwig drew many Ger- mans to Reed's office and handled much of his minor work where the fee ranged from a few cents to a few dollars. Reed, for his part, was in a position to acquaint Ludwig with those small de- tails of the law which the latter needed to know in his minor legal work. Under Reed's influence Jacob's writing became no less
13The town's only Jew.
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HISTORY OF OLD BROAD BAY AND WALDOBORO
diminutive, but more legible and beautiful, for Reed was a master penman. This tacit partnership continued down through 1817, nine years before Jacob Ludwig's death.
In the course of this decade there were many land transfers and many new settlers, and some of these conveyances indicate the original holdings of some of the earliest settlers. For example, on April 17, 1790, Jacob Ludwig sold his early home on Dutch Neck, and for £100 purchased of Peter Crammer one hundred and thirty acres on the east side of the Medomak River "three quarter miles from Medomak Falls" where he built and occupied to the end of his days (1826) the house which in recent years was the residence of Walter Clark. Philip Schuman, who at this time was the owner of one half of this farm, sold his "rights and in- terests" to Ludwig. Jacob's neighbor on the north of his new home was Friedrich Hahn and on the south John Adam Leven- saler.14 The following year George Woltzgruber purchased of Christopher Neuhaus for £27 the whole of what is now known as "Woltzgruber's Island" in Goose River Bay.15
On June 2, 1792, the last representatives in the town of the Siechrist family, Philip and his mother, "Barberry," sold to Charles Heavener for £15 their farm of sixty-three acres "on the east side of Broad Bay near the Upper Narrows."16
August 22, 1793, Charles Overlock sold to Edward Manning his farm of one hundred and fifty-seven acres in East Waldobor- ough, which is the third lot below Ivan Scott's farm, still known as "the old Manning place."17
A newcomer of this decade was the Paine family. In 1793 Joshua Paine of Bath, mariner, purchased for £135 the old one- hundred acre lot, No. 18, east side, in earliest times the farm of Captain Matthias Remilly. This was the present Mandahl place, reaching back from the river until one hundred acres were com- pleted. The largest and most important real-estate transfer came on April 7, 1794, when Captain John Ulmer sold his huge holdings in the center of present-day Waldoboro Village. This lot was sixty-eight poles in width and fronted on the river from the little cove just north of Alfred Storer's lumberyard to a point thirty rods above the First Falls. From these two bounds the lot ran eastward six hundred and fifty-eight rods and contained in all two hundred and sixty-four acres and fifty-six poles, one gristmill and one sawmill. Excepted from the sale was one half-acre of land on the river just below the present bridge on the site of Clark's shipyard, which Captain Ulmer at an earlier date had given to the town for a public landing.
14Lincoln Co. Deeds, Bk. 26, p. 189. 15Ibid., Bk. 27, p. 214. 16Ibid., Bk. 29, p. 58.
17Ibid., Bk. 30, p. 254.
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This property was sold for £600 to a newcomer, David Doane of Eastham, Barnstable County, Massachusetts.18 A gentleman who could pay such a price would make an immediate impression locally, and on March 23, 1795, he was elected first selectman of the town and served one term in this capacity. A daughter, Sarah, married Major Mathews of Warren who moved to Waldoborough and remained here until his death in 1848. Hence Doane had descendants living in the town down to the present day. In the meantime the Ulmer family, including old Captain John, having disposed of its land interest in the town, settled in the Georges Valley and Penobscot Bay area.
William Doane held this central area for only a brief period and on October 31, 1796, sold to William Sproul, 4th, of Bristol for $1800.00
one undivided half of this property ... with the whole of the mansion house now inhabited by said Doane, two thirds of the barn, two third parts of the grist mill and one third part of the sawmill on the falls, ... and one half of all the woodways, waters, improvements and appurte- nances, except one half acre granted by John Ulmer to the town for a landing.
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