USA > Maine > Lincoln County > Waldoboro > History of old Broad Bay and Waldoboro, Volume 2 > Part 16
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Captain Kaler10 arrived here last evening. Miss Newbit11 came up here to our house and staid all night. ... She brought the things with her you sent. I carried Mrs. Morse's silk and Elisa's12 shawl down this morning. They were very much pleased with them. Elisa says she is perfectly satisfied with the price of the shawl, says if there is no money remaining . .. she will send the dollar due you.
The latest fashion in Boston was a constant theme of corre- spondence and much of the feminine journeyings to and from were designed to keep the community up to date. In the case of
10Captain of a Waldoboro-Boston packet.
11A local passenger from Boston on Capt. Kaler's packet.
12Daughter of Mrs. Morse and Deacon Samuel Morse.
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HISTORY OF OLD BROAD BAY AND WALDOBORO
the Reed family it had its own agent in Boston, the Colonel's son, Charles, and the family correspondence is filled with commis- sions to buy those things not available in Waldoboro which were requisite in a gentleman's household, choice brands of wine, grapes, apples, a shawl, a silk dress, a commission for a painter to come to Waldoboro and paint family portraits, gloves, hats, coats, a horse, a carriage, tombstones, and delicacies in the food line. Bos- ton, of course, vended through its shops commodities from all parts of the world, and from this source the first families of the town supplemented the quality of their living.
The standard set by these first families in conspicuous spend- ing and living was emulated in a more modest way by a consider- able middle class of more moderate means. But there was another and a darker side of this picture, the poor. These were the flotsam left on the shore by the great tide of economic change, now mov- ing in its full force. In the early days in the town, land had been wealth, limited wealth to be sure, but it did produce most of what its owners needed to consume under frontier conditions. After the French and Indian War the expanding population of the town had moved away from the river farms in a great rush, and had filled up the back-districts, settling on poor land far below the level of the river farms in productivity. Here they continued the old way of life
Meanwhile along the river a great industry sprang into being with its many smaller and supplementary industries such as brass and iron foundries and sail lofts. The village capitalist went into shipbuilding and grew rich; the river farmers became ship carpen- ters and increased the income from their farms with wages as skilled workmen. Only the poor in the back-districts failed to gain from the current economic shifts. Poor land and hard labor was their lot, with scarcely a market for their little surplus, for in the maritime ports of New England as an ever deeper and deeper hinterland opened up to agriculture, and as roads were improved, this environing farm region took care of the consumer needs in the areas adjacent to them. The poor in the Waldoboro back-districts did not even have a market for their surplus in their own village area, since the middle class along the river had their own farms and cultivated these along with their work in the shipbuilding indus- tries. Their life, too, was hard, but they were for the most part able to set aside capital reserves. Even the village squires did not provide a market for the back-district people, for almost without exception they were gentlemen farmers producing an abundance for them- selves and a surplus besides. Squire Bulfinch may be taken as typical of this class. His taxable property for the year 1847 shows his farm stocked with a yoke of oxen, seven cows, two hogs, and ten sheep.
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The Village Squires
These with his grain and cornfields and his truck patch were enough to secure a high level of economic self-sufficiency.
The back-district people, lacking the foresight to sense eco- nomic change, were caught in a new order of life to which they were unable for decades to effect a livable adjustment. The little lumber left on their lots which they could turn over to the ship- yards and sawmills, and small pasture growth for barrel making was about all that was left them, and this barely sufficed for pur- chasing the meager necessities which they themselves could not produce. It was by far the larger percentage of the town's citizens that was affected adversely by existing economic conditions. It is difficult in our own time to realize just how poor these poor people were, but there is some contemporary evidence to provide an insight into their status. An example is the last will and testament of one widow woman, Phoebe Andrews, which furnishes us with a full inventory of her worldly goods, and pathetically reveals just how low the standard of living in this poor class was. The docu- ment follows in part:
In the name of GOD amen. I, Phebe Andru of Waldoborough in the County of Lincoln, widow, considering the uncertainty of life and desirous that Betty Davis, whom I have brought up, should be the heir to all that I may possess at the time of my death, do make and publish this, my last will and Testament. I do hereby give and bequeath all the property of every name and nature which I shall die possessed of to the said Betty Davis, to be by her owned and possessed immediately upon my decease.
The said property consists principally of the following articles, viz., one cow, one feather bed, bedding and bedstead, my wearing apparell, two pine Tables, two iron pots, three tin milk dishes, one tin and one wooden milk pail, nine earthen plates with blue or green edges, some knives, forks and spoons, a great wheel and a little wheel, one washtub, one churn, one spider, one flat iron, two or three tin dippers, one black teapot, some cups and saucers, red, green, yellow and white, one Heler [or Keler(? ) ] tub, three chairs, two wooden chests, one tea kettle, and many small articles besides. It is my wish that whatever I shall leave at the time of my death shall be the property of the said Betty Davis. And I do publish this as my last will and testament made this twenty- fourth day of March in the year of our Lord, one thousand, eight- hundred and seven.13
If one really senses the full import of this document, reveal- ing as it does a way and a level of life common to Phebe and to many others in the town in her day, disclosing an uncomplaining poverty, a naïve outlook, a heart that treasures nothing as though it were much, then the pathos, the tears and the tragedy of a long epoch in our history relives again in our present perceptions. In this inventory of goods there is scarcely an article that one would
13Original document in my possession.
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HISTORY OF OLD BROAD BAY AND WALDOBORO
mention in a contemporary will, unless for sentimental reasons. The value which the testator attaches to this careful enumeration of property reveals the standard and the simplicity of the life secured with these few primitive utensils. The "tax lists" of the period tell a similar story of equally simple conditions prevailing in the majority of homes and reveal how very little large numbers of people possessed.
The pension records in Washington shed light also on the dire poverty of many of the old soldiers in the town. Following the Revolution needy soldiers were pensioned by the State of Massachusetts. This arrangement was in force until 1818, when on March 18th of that year, these pensioners relinquished their state pension for that of the Federal Government. For common soldiers the allowance was eight dollars per month, which in these times was judged sufficient to provide a family with the necessities of life. It was, in fact, a princely allowance when compared with the Massachusetts State pension of four dollars per month for soldiers of the Revolution, and two dollars and fifty cents per month for those of the War of 1812. To secure the Federal allowance an appli- cant had to file a printed form, a combination of pauper's oath with an inventory of the property owned and an oath of military service. As an example, Michael Achorn, a veteran of both wars with England, gives himself as a laborer by occupation, "which I am unable to pursue by reason of age and infirmity." He lists the age of his wife at sixty-two and his property as "1/4 acre of land which I purchased with my pension money, worth $50.00; old furniture $5.00; I have nothing due me and owe about ten dollars." If this man's oath may be trusted this was the extent of his worldly goods.14
Conrad Heyer was only a little more affluent than Michael Achorn. He lists himself by occupation as a farmer, "which I am unable to pursue by reason of my old age and infirmity." Living with him was his wife, aged sixty-three, a cripple, and a daughter of twenty-six, nurse to his wife.
Schedule of the real and personal estate (necessary clothing and bedding excepted) belonging to me, the subscriber, viz:
No real estate.
1 Ox $20.00. 2 cows, $30.00. Old furniture, $5.00.
I owe Dr. Brown $100.00.
I owe Isaac Winchenbach $25.00.
I owe John Storer $5.00.15
George Ulmer lived under about the same conditions as Con- rad Heyer, though he varied somewhat from the old patriarch in
14File of George Michael Achorn, Bureau of Pensions, Wash., D. C.
15File of Conrad Heyer, ctf. of Pension No. 13293, Bureau of Pensions, Wash., D. C.
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The Village Squires
his limited earthly possessions. He gives himself by occupation as a laborer, "which I am unable to pursue by reason of my age and troble with the rheumatism and cramp so that I have not been able to do any hard work for several years." Living with him was his wife, Mary, aged sixty-three, "very feeble and lost the use of her right hand." Under his schedule of real and personal property he lists the following:
1 Hog.
1 Grindstone, $2.50; 1 dining table, 4 chairs.
I hold a note against Isaac Ulmer, $25.00.
1 Pot, 1 teakettle. A demand against Martin Ulmer, $15.00.
Other articles for cooking, etc., $6.00.
I am indebted to Capt. Wm. Norward & others upwards of $200.00.16
If it be granted that these affidavits emphasize for obvious reasons the scarce aspect of the existence of these old soldiers, nevertheless they still reflect the indigent side of the life lived by these old farmers and laborers in the rural sections, indeed a level of life little known, and perhaps not even surmised by the squires in the village.
It was this low standard of life in New England, this poverty, that had brought on Shay's Rebellion and the cleavage between classes which was the root of the Jeffersonian uprising against the Federalists. In Waldoboro such class differences were slow in developing among the disciplined and docile "Dutch," and would perhaps have been accepted by them uncritically as an inevitable part of the social order in a new world, save for one factor, the village squires, whose oppression and deliberate exploita- tion of the poor laid the groundwork for a class hatred in the town that altered the whole character and trend of our history for up- wards of a hundred years.
This exploitation came about largely through the cupidity of certain squires. As a whole these gentlemen were money-makers, entirely hard-boiled in their business dealings, and in some cases inhuman in dealing with the poor in bargains of necessity. Their philosophy of business and their business techniques had such fate- ful and lasting consequences in the life of the town that we shall pause briefly to ponder this dollars and cents outlook and permit its expositers to speak for themselves, which they have done with the boldest realism in some of the personal correspondence of the period. For example, an elderly squire writing to his son in Boston under date of March 1, 1842, admonished him in the following words on a matter of collecting a note ... "should he pay the residue you will require interest from the date, without abating one cent."
16File of George Ulmer, Bureau of Pensions, Wash., D. C.
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HISTORY OF OLD BROAD BAY AND WALDOBORO
Along with this tight-fisted fiscal technique there was fre- quently a curious intermingling of religious admonition, perhaps with the unconscious thought of always rendering a close trans- action a safe one. Thus one of the old dons writes to his son on the latter having reached his majority: "Be diligent in business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord." An older and successful local businessman under date of June 28, 1847, writes to his younger brother in Boston a bit of the squire philosophy on money mat- ters: "No man ever (very extraordinary circumstances excepted) became wealthy or even independent who did not apply himself to his business, and take care of the cents, yes, the cents." At another time, this same brother sent the following counsel: "I would advise you to marry the first woman that you can find who has about fifty thousand dollars. If old and ugly the money will pay for that. If young and pretty, so much the better, but get the money at any rate. That is the summum bonum of this world - a man without it [money] is nothing. Mind the cents. That is the great secret of getting wealth."17
This philosophy of money as the "summum bonum" of this world is admirably and humorously illustrated in a deal of one of the local squires who came to town in 1821 owning nothing save what he carried on his back and in his hands. This episode is an example of the sharp dealing of the period where little more than the legal requirements involved were observed. The young man in question married into one of the older and wealthier families, which in an earlier day had sold house lots in the center of the village to some of the leading men in the town. Years later this enterprising young gentleman discovered that one of the heirs to the real estate sold had not signed the acts of transfer, whereupon he compelled several of his neighbors to buy their lots over again. With homes already erected on them the owners were helpless. Even the wealthiest and perhaps the strongest citizen in the town, despite his oath to the contrary, was forced to submit to this legal extortion and repurchase four house lots on which stood his own home and the houses he had erected for three of his children.18
It was this zeal for "minding the cents" as a certain road to riches that led some of the village squires to exploit the poor in the outlying districts after the manner of leeches. These poor were so poor and their margin of safety over need was so close that a meager crop, a family sickness, or a funeral would drop them into debt. In some such cases they had the choice of going to jail or of resorting to the moneylending squires in the village. The latter were always ready to lend their money, in fact, this was quite an
17These excerpts from correspondence are cited anonymously at the request of those loaning the material. [Italics mine.]
18Oral narrative of Miss Edna Young.
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The Village Squires
item of business with some of them. The interest rates on such loans were high, ten to twelve per cent, and the security was always the poor man's real estate, which indeed was all he had. Hence mort- gages were the only means of securing loans, and the records in Wiscasset reveal all too clearly the extent of this business. To pay the rate of fifty or sixty dollars a year on a five-hundred-dollar mortgage was quite generally more than a poor family could do, and the moneylender through foreclosure secured the property for a fraction of its value. On the other hand, if the interest pay- ments were met regularly it was a handsome return for the lender.
The results of such practices were in the main twofold. The poor man became a pauper, and a powerful class hatred was built up between the village and the back-district folk which served to cripple the development of the town in many ways for upwards of a century. The vote was the only weapon left to the back-district folk, and it was used relentlessly to thwart the progress and the civic aspirations of the village community.
This whole low practice is briefly and pointedly outlined by the Hon. Isaac Reed in a letter to his brother, Charles, in Boston under date of May 1, 1845:
If I had the funds and the disposition I could soon make myself rich by taking liens on real estate and exacting a strict compliance with the conditions which I might fix. But I shall not go into such business: by doing it a man loses his character and that I consider of more value than dollars and cents.19
In justice it should be said that the reaction of Isaac Reed to such practices was also that of other village gentry as well as the better-to-do among the middle class. This reaction may be illustrated by three concrete cases, one that of a group and the other two of individuals. The group reaction is furnished by an article in the town warrant of March 5, 1812: "Article V. To deter- mine whether the town will assist John Benner, a town's poor in re- covering his land again, at the request of a number of the inhabitants of the town."20 A similar case was that of Charles Mink whose land was redeemed for him by the town in 1845 on payment of fifty dollars. This case was in the warrant again in 1856 in Article IV: "To see if the town will reconvey to Charles Mink the real estate conveyed to J -- B -- , and by him to the town of Waldoboro, he paying the amount paid by the town" to redeem the property.21 Both of these cases were apparently those of poor families who through the loss of real estate had become town charges, and of whom it was believed that the restoration of their land would enable them to become self-supporting.
19 Letter in possession of Dr. Benjamin Kinsell, Med. Arts Bldg., Dallas, Texas. 20Town Clerk's Record, April 20, 1845.
21Ibid., April 14, 1856.
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HISTORY OF OLD BROAD BAY AND WALDOBORO
The motive to aid the usurer's victims was not always prompted by self-interest, nor by Squire Reed's feeling that in such business a man lost his character, but sometimes by real human interest and Christian fellow feeling. Such a case was that of Dea- con Jacob Shuman coming to the aid of a young neighbor, Frank Weaver. Jacob Shuman was the first deacon in the local Baptist Church, and lived in the house now occupied by Mrs. Edith E. Cuthbertson on the east side of the river north of Winslow's Mills, while Frank Weaver was a young man barely turned twenty. It was his ambition to possess a farm of his own and he had borrowed the money and purchased himself land in "Weavertown." While tramping home one evening by Deacon Shuman's, he met the old gentleman who was out before his house and who accosted him in the following language:
"Young man, I her yer've bought yerself a farm." Mr. Weaver: "Yes, Deacon Shuman." Deacon Shuman: "Wher' d'yer git the money?" Mr. Weaver: "I borrowed it." Deacon Shuman: "Who'd yer borrer it from?" Mr. Weaver: "Of Mr. J -- in the village." Deacon Shuman: "What's old S -- chargin yer fer it?" Mr. Weaver: "Twelve per cent." Deacon Shuman: "Young man, I'm goin to ther village ter morrer morning. You come along and ride down with me. We'll take up that mortgage, and I'll let yer hev the money fer six per cent."22
This simple human incident reveals the attitude of some of the Waldoboro folk to the current usurious practices of the pe- riod, and the means sometimes used to circumvent the objective of the village moneylenders.
The feeling of hatred toward the village folk grew in inten- sity in consequence of these Shylock practices, and like the rain from heaven, it fell equally on the just and the unjust. At times and in spots it flared into a shooting war. A case in question may be found in certain incidents that took place in Blacktown. This district lay in the northeastern section of the township. On the Belscop Road a turn to the right at Patrick Black's led across to Minktown. Out here in the brush on a sizable peninsula formed by the windings of the Judas Meadow Brook23 was Blacktown. Here among other Blacks lived in the first half of the century Jacob Schwarz and son, later known as Christian Black. Land in this section was heavily mortgaged at interest rates ranging from eight to twelve per cent. This particular district happened to be in the loan bailiwick of Squire B -- , and thither he was wont to make his periodic trips by horse and chaise to collect his interest when due.
22Oral narrative of Vellis Weaver.
23Now known as the Levensaler Brook.
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The Village Squires
Whenever word was passed along that the Squire was on his way the women would close their shutters and bolt their doors, while the men would take to the woods with their guns, so intense was the feeling against the Squire. On one occasion when he found the door of Jacob Schwarz's house locked against him, he was moved to peep through the keyhole. Mrs. Schwarz apparently knowing the Squire's habits was prepared for such an emergency and promptly dashed some hot water through the hole into the Squire's face.
On another visit of the Squire to this district it is said that his life was saved by the roughness of the road. Some Black with a strong grudge long smouldering in his heart was lying in ambush with a rifle. When the Squire had passed and was some distance ahead of the lurking foe, the rifle barked. At this moment the Squire's wheel hit a high stone in the road, the chaise lurched, and he slid over on the seat just as the bullet pierced the back of it where his body had been a second before.24
This latter incident was extreme, but it does reveal the depth of the bitterness existing between the village and the back-country folk. In fact, this hatred was so strong that more than a century was to pass before it was completely expunged. It was a feeling that lingered on into my own lifetime and still survives in one very vivid memory dating from my early boyhood. It was a bright Sunday morning as I was entering the Baptist Church to the toll- ing of the "last bell." The Paul Revere bell in the Congregational steeple was also tolling, and down Main Street were coming in silks and furs a group of ladies wending their way in stately dignity to the church of the social elect. The awe in which I gazed at this scene, still vivid in my memory, I now recognize as an atavistic reaction which arose from the lingering respect once generally rendered to this village social caste.
The record of the old dons as outlined in this chapter presents its lights and shadows. Despite their pride of purse, their possessive- ness, their penny-pinching ways of getting wealth, and their ex- treme social exclusiveness, it must be admitted that they gave to the staid "Dutch" community a culture, a taste for fine living, and a tradition of the best achieved in American life during the Colonial and Federal periods. Their sins, while not many, may be forgiven, because their mission was lofty, and their contribution to the glory of a great New England community must be justly recognized as great.
24Oral narrative by Ernest Black and Orrin Folsom.
XXXIII
THE BEGINNINGS OF THE GREAT DAYS
New Englanders for most of their history have looked eastward rather than westward, and their interest has been maritime rather than continental. JAMES TRUSLOW ADAMS
HE BEGINNING OF WALDOBORO'S GREAT PERIOD started in reality in the first decade of the new century with the advent of the second major migration of Puritans. These men brought to the young community a new spirit of energy, enterprise, and education. In vision, intelligence, and vital power they were not surpassed by the leading men in any town in the state. Under their bold initia- tive shipyard after shipyard sprang up along both banks of the Medomak, and the ring of the hammer on the anvil and the duller thuds of the caulker's mallets from sunrise to sunset rose in a steady crescendo from 1800 to 1860.
The growth and prosperity of the town in its great days was founded on shipbuilding and its related industries. In this respect as well as in wealth, in its social life, in size and growth, it was one of the half dozen most rapidly developing and prosper- ing towns in the state. These were the days when the great indus- trial revolution of the nineteenth century was just getting under way and those localities where big industry ultimately centered had not begun their drain on the population of the rural commu- nities. Brains, energy, and initiative were not yet centralized; they were scattered and to be found in every new community. What Waldoboro possessed in this respect was superlative, and the town was conspicuous as one of the main business centers of the state. Its enterprise and the stories of its ships were news in every paper from New York to Machias. An insight into its comparative wealth is provided by the valuation of its property for tax pur- poses in the year 1829. This valuation was $193,491.50. In Lincoln County this figure was exceeded by Bath alone, and the county at this time extended from the New Meadows River to the Penob- scot. This same year the town expended for roads and bridges
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