USA > Maine > Lincoln County > Waldoboro > History of old Broad Bay and Waldoboro, Volume 2 > Part 26
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me all night to name them all to you. Henry Acorn is very much con- cerned for his soul. Last Friday evening he was in such great distress he sent for -- to come down and pray for him. He said there was no mercy for him. He said the Lord would be just if He cast him off for- ever. Mr. Tappan has great hopes of him. He goes to all the -- meet- ings and all the prayer meetings. . .. They have prayer meetings every Saturday and every Sunday evening, besides a great many other eve- nings.18
In the preceding chapters the methods used by the town in handling its poor have been sketched in some detail, but with the omission of one of the oldest practices, that of indenture, a prac- tice which dates back to the early days of the Colonial Period, and which assumed a wide variety of forms. In the Waldoboro area it was practiced primarily in the case of children whose parents aban- doned them or were incapable of supporting them. Many of Gen- eral Waldo's Germans landed here bonded for their passage money, and in those dire winters following the coming of the Colony of 1753, many of the German children were indentured to English families in Damariscotta and on the Georges simply because there
18Letters in possession of Mrs. Jason Westerfield, Camden, Me.
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HISTORY OF OLD BROAD BAY AND WALDOBORO
was not food in the town for their support. The meaning of such indentures is made amply clear in the following document, which in my belief was the last to be issued in the town of Waldoboro:
This Indenture Witnesseth, That we, Jedediah Arnold, Charles Samson, and Frederick Castner, Overseers of the Poor of the town of Waldoboro in the County of Lincoln, by virtue of a law of this State in such cases made and provided, have put and placed and by these present do put, place and bind out, William James, a poor child, the son of Mrs. Nancy Butler of Warren in our County aforesaid, as an apprentice to Robert Farnsworth of Waldoboro, aforesaid yeoman, to learn the art, mystery and business of a Farmer: - the said William James after the manner of an apprentice, to dwell with and serve the said Robert Farnsworth, from the day of the date hereof until the sixth day of October which will be in the year of our Lord one thousand, eight hundred and thirty-eight, at which time the said apprentice, if he shall be living, will be twenty-one years of age - And the said Robert Farns- worth on his part, doth hereby promise, covenant and agree to teach and instruct the said apprentice, or cause him to be taught and instructed in the art and calling of a Farmer by the best means he can; and also to teach and instruct the said apprentice, or cause him to be taught or in- structed to read and write, if the said apprentice be capable to learn; and during the said term to find and provide unto the said apprentice good and sufficient meat, drink, clothing, lodging and other necessaries fit and convenient for such an apprentice during the term aforesaid; also medicines and medical aid in case the said apprentice should re- quire either or both during the term aforesaid, and at the expiration of said terms the said Robert shall give unto the said apprentice, two suits of new wearing apparel, one suitable for the Lord's Day, and the other for working days.
In testimony whereof, the said parties have to this and one other indenture of the same tenor and date, interchangeably set their hands and seals, the first day of November, in the year of our Lord, one thou- sand, eight hundred and twenty-four.
Signed, sealed and delivered in presence of us:
Joseph Ludwig Alexander Palmer
Robert Farnsworth
Jedediah Arnold
Charles Samson
Frederic Castner19
The census of 1830 was taken by James Schenck, and it re- veals certain new trends in the town. In the first place, it showed a growth more marked than in the previous decades. The total count of 3113 was an increase of that of 1820 by 611. In the second place, the Puritans were catching up on the Germans. The number of those living in families bearing German names was 2016, and in families bearing English names 1097. The Puritan ratio had risen and now stood at one to two. The third factor was the growth of village population. The people living within a radius of one mile of the Four Corners numbered approximately five hundred souls, and the English in this area were in a ratio of three to one. Here was
1ยบ Document in my possession.
227
Annals of the 20's and 30's
concentrated the brains, the initiative, the refinement, and the capi- tal, but the back-districts still remained heavily weighted with po- litical control.
Families were still large. The largest household in this town was that of Daniel Sidelinger, 3rd, with seventeen members, while households of ten came close to the average. There were few aliens in the town. One was listed in each of the families of James Herbert in the village, Nathaniel Ewell in South Waldoboro, and Gabriel Martin in East Waldoboro. The McGarrett family at Kaler's Cor- ner, a group of which all villagers heartily disapproved, numbered seven, four of whom were aliens. All negroes were listed as free men, since the slavery issue was becoming tense throughout the entire country. Child mortality continued to run high. Despite this fact there were in the population of the town 1672 males and fe- males under the age of twenty-one, which was well over fifty per cent of the total inhabitants in the town.
Numerical dominance still rested with comparatively few families, the Benners leading with a total of one hundred and forty bearing that name. Thereafter in order followed the Kalers, Minks, Millers, Creamers, Ludwigs, Storers, Shumans, Winchenbachs, Achorns, Genthners, and Eugleys. The twelve most numerous family clans totalled 846 which was well over one quarter of the population of the town, while two thirds of the population was made up of those bearing the names of twenty-five family groups.20
During the third and fourth decades many of the second generation of Germans and of the first generation of Puritans were joining the founding fathers in the public resting places and in the little private cemeteries which dotted so many of the old family farms. A bit of historical insight is furnished by the following death notice:
1827 - Died in Waldoboro st inst., Mr. Bernard Eugley, aged 92. He was one of the few survivors who emigrated to that place with Brigadier General Waldo from Germany in 1754. Although he resided since that time in Waldoboro, he never became well enough ac- quainted with the English language to use it in conversation. He as well as most of the early emigrants survived to a great age, which may be attributed to habits of industry and temperance.
There were in these decades two deaths which left a void in the life of the town. The first of these was Jacob Ludwig, not a citizen but an institution, the leader and factotum of the German element since early days. Mr. Ludwig was a veritable jack-of-all- trades, farmer, businessman, soldier, local jurist, public scribe, leg- islator, and village statesman. To the community he must have seemed timeless. His body aged but his mind retained its clarity
"Bureau of the Census, Washington, D. C.
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HISTORY OF OLD BROAD BAY AND WALDOBORO
and keenness to its last hour at the advanced age of ninety-six. On New Year's day, 1826, Jacob Ludwig sat in his "ancient chair" at the western window of his hillside home. Thoughts of a little vil- lage in the Rhine country, where his youth was spent, may have smouldered in his memory; he may have recalled the harsh and hungry days of the French and Indian War; he may have remem- bered the upper Medomak Valley, on which his dimming gaze was fixed, as a trackless wilderness, with later a few little clearings marked by humble homes of logs.
But in this New Year all was changed. It was a cleared valley of level meadows and commodious dwellings. He had begun life in the New World as a subject of King George III; he had wit- nessed, yea, aided in the birth of a nation, and now in the time of the second Adams all its life was vivid back through the time of Madison, Monroe, Jefferson, Adams, and Washington. But now the panorama of these long and colorful years dims and fades for- ever. Jacob Ludwig elected to be laid in a place among the Puritans in the Central Cemetery near the lot of his old friend, Colonel Isaac G. Reed.
In 1831 the colorful and eventful life of Dr. Benjamin Brown came to its close. It was a life spent in many places. He was born in Swansea, Massachusetts, on September 23, 1756. As a young doctor he roved the seas with his old friend, Commodore Tucker. After the Revolution he lived in Providence, Bremen, and Waldo- boro. His activities were as varied as those of Jacob Ludwig, physi- cian, surgeon, farmer, civic leader, village squire, and congressman. In these parts Dr. Brown first lived "at the landing" at Broad Cove in Bremen. In Waldoboro he bought and resided at a large farm on Friendship Road about three-quarters of a mile south of the Four Corners. This farm was bequeathed to his son, Charles S., who later sold it to Governor S. S. Marble. In this home Dr. Brown entertained his old friend, President John Adams, and hither came frequently Commodore Tucker from Bremen. On one such occa- sion a party was held. The ladies, Mrs. Hector Brown, Mrs. Farley, and others formed a circle around the two old veterans and sang "Scots Who Hae Wi' Wallace Bled." At the end Commodore Tucker slapped Dr. Brown on the shoulder and in his bluff way exclaimed: "Bennie! Bennie! That would make a worm crawl that had been dead a thousand years."
Dr. Brown was the medical adviser to Mrs. Henry Knox, and it was said that he was the only local figure whom the haughty dis- position of this lady would accept on terms of social equality.21 Dr. Brown was buried in the new cemetery on Main Street, then known as the "Sproul Yard." His passing left Colonel Isaac G.
21 Bertha V. Foster, Brown Memorial.
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Annals of the 20's and 30's
Reed and William Sproul the sole survivors in the town of the group of leaders in the early Puritan period. Colonel William Farnsworth, Cornelius Turner, John Head, Nathanael Simmons, Colonel Waterman Thomas, and Captain Charles Samson had all been gathered to their last rest. Thomas McGuyer had moved back to Bristol and Joshua Head had gone to pass his few remaining years with his married daughter in Warren.
The great age reached by so many of the first, second and third generations has long been a matter of comment and specu- lation. The answer is probably a rather simple one. These old gen- erations lived in a frontier environment which kept their adaptive mechanisms functioning normally from birth to death, and so con- served a sound functional unity in the entire organism, an organism geared for a million years or more to move through life at the pace of the ox rather than at the speed of the auto and the aeroplane, a pace wherein the process of wearing out was not accelerated be- yond the process of repair. This seems to have been the formula of their longevity, and its dividends were certainly high, as may be seen in the following fifty-one deaths in the town between 1819 and 1840, of which not one occurred below the fourscore mark.22
Died
Aet.
Died
Aet.
1819
Gottfried Burnheimer
87
1830
Abel Cole
90
1819
Dr. John C. Wallizer
89
1830
Abner Keene
85
1819
Mrs. John Fitzgerald
85
1830
Cornelius Turner
90
1820
John Kinsell
90
1831 Daniel Achorn
97
1820
Mary Haupt
82
1832
Mrs. Wm. Farnsworth
96
1822
Charles Heibner
99
1832
James Schenck
85
1822
Peter Kramer
96
1832
Peter Walter
82
1823
Nathan Sprague
87
1832
Barnabas Freeman
91
1824
Catherine Eliz. Ludwig
89
1833
Joseph H. Ludwig
91
1825
Michael Sprague
88
1833
Christian Hoffses
85
1825
John Kinsell
80
1833
Martin Benner
90
1825
Paul Lash
80
1833
Mary Ann Newbert
96
1826
Jacob Ludwig
95
1833
Philip Keizer
90
1826
William Farnsworth
90
1833
John Fitzgerald
95
1827
John G. Bornemann
97
1834
Levi Russell
84
1827
Michael Ried
99
1835
Jane Eugley
84
1827
Bernhard Eugley
92
1835
Paul Kuhn
84
1827
Bertram Gross
94
1836
Isaiah Cole
83
1827
Mrs. John Feyler
96
1838
John William Kaler
99
1827
Henry Stahl
90
1838
John Newbert
98
1827
Mrs. Charles Shuman
82
1839
Katherine Kaler
86
1828
Christopher Newbert
93
1839
Peter Schwartz
82
1830
George Hoch
100
1839
Christian Bornheimer
82
1830
Philip Stahl
87
1839
Hannah Simmons
83
1830
Abel Nash
90
1840
Jacob Bornheimer
80
1830
Michael Hoch
99
1840
Mrs. Paul Kuhn
86
22M. R. Ludwig, Ludwig Genealogy (Augusta, 1866).
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HISTORY OF OLD BROAD BAY AND WALDOBORO
The amount of transportation necessary to feed the business of the community affords an excellent index to the volume, scope, and intensity of the local economic life. In the 1830's Waldoboro's connection with the larger world was twofold, land and water. Land transportation was by stagecoach with the great business centers via Bath and Portland, and inland via Augusta. These routes made provision for mail and to a considerable degree for passenger transportation, but all heavy traffic and to some extent passenger traffic proceeded by water. This trade was almost exclusively with Boston and it was surprisingly active and heavy. For more than eight months during the year a dozen schooners were busy han- dling this traffic. It was necessary to accumulate stocks for the winter season during the ice-free months, but even in winter, stores were landed at Broad Cove in Bremen and from there hauled by oxen over the snow.
All the vessels engaged in this trade were two-masted schoon- ers and their skippers were all local men. The vessels were: Exam- ple, Captain Wallace; Atlantic, Captain Kaler; Othello, Captain Cole; Packet, Captain Haupt; Hero, Captain Cudworth; Bahama, Captain Lewis Winchenbach; Medomak, Captain Isaac Winchen- bach; Bertha, Captain Castner; Watchman, Captain Waltz; Mary Jane, Captain Waltz; Columbia, Captain Kaler, and Firm, Captain Creamer. These vessels were somewhat over one hundred tons burden and probably represented a total of around fifteen hundred tons. Under favorable conditions a trip a week was the average run. All the produce shipped from the port was carried by these vessels, and in turn they supplied the needs of its households, its farms, its stores, its industries, and the ever-increasing needs of its shipyards. There were long journeys also undertaken by private vehicles, as for example, in 1835 when Jane Ann Reed went to Bangor by horse and sleigh with her half-brother in-law, Doctor John G. Brown.23
Up to the year 1834 Waldoboro had been without a local newspaper. This was a rather unusual phenomenon considering that some of the smaller towns in the county had supported a weekly paper for several decades. Such a project was hardly feas- ible in Waldoboro in the earlier days, since so large a proportion of the population was non-English speaking and reading, and the Puritan element was not sufficiently numerous to form a support- ing reading public, but in 1834 G. W. and F. W. Nichols issued the first number of their Lincoln Patriot on December 5th. It was a weekly made up of a folio sheet, twenty-one by thirteen inches, with the printing finely done on a clear rag paper. The service was two dollars per year.
23Letter to parents (Jan. 29, 1835), in possession of Dr. Benj. Kinsell, Dallas, Texas.
231
Annals of the 20's and 30's
After about five years its publication was discontinued. The reason for this failure seems to have been threefold. It was, in the first place, more of a literary periodical than a newspaper. To be sure, there was advertising in its columns, but there were none of the local news items which in a small town sustain and swell the subscription lists. In their place were long, political articles, com- mentaries on national and world events, and the essay type of dis- course on religion, morality, and related fields. In a word, it was too "highbrow" for the local reading public. In the second place, its political views were those of the Democratic Party and as such anathema to the old Federalists, now the local Whig machine, and its henchmen. These elements gave grudging and limited support and derisively dubbed the paper "The Lincoln Poker." Lastly, there were still too many people in the town who did not read English with any degree of ease, to say nothing of the scholarly English in which the columns of the paper were cast. The time had not come as yet for journalism in Waldoboro, and was not to come for nearly another half-century.
With rapid growth in the economic life, the town was com- ing to feel ever more acutely the lack of banking facilities. With capital and experience ample for the enterprise the Medomak Bank was incorporated in August 1836 with a capital stock of over $90,000. The largest stockholders were James R. Groton, sixty-two shares; James Hovey, fifty shares; John Bulfinch, twenty-five; George Sproul, twenty; William Groton, twenty; Samuel Morse, twenty; George D. Smouse, twenty; Parker McCobb, eleven; Delia A. Farley, eleven, and Joseph Clark, ten shares. The balance of the stock was distributed through the town among sixty-six hold- ers, taking from two to five shares each. The first president was George D. Smouse and the directors were Samuel Morse, John Bulfinch, Isaac Reed, George Sproul, James Hovey, James Cook, Henry Kennedy, and Frederick Castner. The first cashier was James R. Groton, followed by Parker McCobb, George Allen, who served for forty years, David W. Potter, and Hadley H. Kuhn. On February 15, 1865, this institution became a national bank with Samuel W. Jackson, George D. Smouse, Henry Kennedy, Alfred Storer, and Samuel M. Morse its directors. The first dividend of $2375 was paid on March 6, 1837. The control of this bank re- mained in local hands for over one hundred years.
The rapidly growing village was in the main in these years an aggregate of wooden blocks, wooden stores and wooden houses, facts which created a terrible fire hazard and rendered the men whose money was at stake in the growing town acutely desirous of some form of protection against such risks. There had been fire- wardens since early in the century, but these were little more than the organizers and directors of bucket brigades. Sometime in 1838
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HISTORY OF OLD BROAD BAY AND WALDOBORO
a fire-engine agent came to town and through him the first engine was purchased, the little old "Water Witch" with its rotary pump which is still a part of the town's fire equipment pro honoris causa.
This engine was strictly a village machine. The back-district folk had slight interest in giving the village protection, especially if it meant added taxes. Consequently the money was raised through private subscription by Hector M. Brown and George D. Smouse. With the delivery of the machine Waldoboro's first fire company was formed. It was a going concern in April 1839 when the foreman, General William S. Cochran, reported to the select- men "a true list of the men now belonging to the engine company in this town, all of whom regularly do their duty." The roll of the company follows:
Benjamin Roberts
Bela B. Haskell
Jacob Hahn
Isaac S. Kaler
James Hovey
Edwin Achorn
Thomas Overlock
George H. Hopkins
Isaac G. Benner
Solomon Benner
Charles P. Willett
Hector Levensaler
Augustus Welt
Solomon Shuman
Isaac Sides
Andrew Sides
M. T. Simmons
William G. Reed
William S. Cochran
John Ames
Alden Miller
John A. Levensaler
It may be noted in this connection, as in many others, that in these days it was the most able and prominent citizens of the town who sought office and were elevated to office, and who did a very considerable part of the spadework in all new enterprises. It was not above James Hovey, Augustus Welt, or Bela B. Haskell, three of the ablest and wealthiest young men in the village, to serve the community in a fire company. Perhaps the zeal of these good men was better than their judgment, for there were fiery days not far ahead when the brave little Water Witch would prove as impo- tent as a child's squirt gun.
The essential character of human activities and interests tend to remain ever the same. As it is now, so it was in the town more than a hundred years ago. There was the same never-ending under- current of small talk touching on the little things in village life, births, deaths, marriages, political and social intrigue, petty spites and squabbles, parties, church clashes, and long smouldering family feuds. If it be the function of history to portray the whole life, the little may be as essential or revealing in its own way as the big.
Certainly life cannot be pictured as it was in Waldoboro so long ago without recourse to these intimate and trivial phases. Much little village gossip comes to light in old letters, in the case
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Annals of the 20's and 30's
of Waldoboro, letters of the correct and numerous Reeds, in these years the first family of the town, whose lot it was in common with their fellow men to swallow bitter medicine on occasion. This was strikingly so in case of the social apostasy of "Uncle" (by marriage) George Demuth. Uncle George was a second or third generation German born at Broad Bay in 1771. He was indubitably able, and in his younger years was the local agent of his cousin, Captain George Demuth Smouse. In this family business he laid the foun- dations of a comfortable income and became one of the most active and influential Germans in the civic and business life of the town. In 1810 he sold the original Demuth Homestead,24 on which he was then living, to his brother, Martin, and then purchased of William Sproul the tract on Main Street now occupied by the Baptist Church and the homes of Mary Hutchins and Roscoe Benner, deceased. Here Mr. Demuth built himself a home where he lived until his death. To the east of his house and next adjoining on the present Sanborn lot was a house owned by Uncle George, and occupied by the McCobbs in their earlier years in the village. McCobb was the Collector of the Port, a Democrat and a Univer- salist. Uncle George, the Smouses, and Reeds were all Federalists, later Whigs, and people of standing in the established church. In these facts there was a more than ample basis for a family feud.
But now Uncle George was old and apparently getting care- less, for on the 17th of October, at the age of fifty-nine, he took as his second wife a Miss Sarah Melvin, who was a Catholic. This was a most un-Federal act on his part, since Catholics had not been allowed in the Massachusetts Bay colony, and this intolerance still lingered strongly among all sound churchmen in the smaller cen- ters. One of the McCobb girls, Hannah Elizabeth, daughter of Denny McCobb, Esq., had married Matthew Cotterell of Damar- iscotta. The rites had been solemnized on September 15, 1821, in Waldoboro by a Catholic priest, the Reverend Dennis Ryan. This had not rendered the odor of the McCobbs any more savory in the most exclusive social circles. And then Uncle George went and did the same thing. Family pride was swallowed, perhaps with a blush, and the subject became taboo.
This bit of social history will serve as the background of a letter by Jane Ann Reed, daughter of the Colonel, to her half-sister, Bertha Smouse, who was on a visit in Boston:
Waldoboro, Oct. 2, 1830
.. . Uncle is published. Arn't you ashamed to let that old man break the ice. I should think you would have wanted to have been first.
McCobb has moved. I heard he and uncle had quite a spat about some rose and currant bushes. They were all at work taking them up,
24The home of Henry Hilton on Friendship Road.
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HISTORY OF OLD BROAD BAY AND WALDOBORO
the old woman, girls and all, and were supplying their neighbors. Uncle told them if they took another one he would prosecute them. The old man was quite humble and Uncle told him he had no more to say to him about it, but as for his wife and girls if they did not mind how they behaved, he would make them smart. If this were true as I think likely it is as I had it from his brother Martin's wife, I should think they had fallen into the right person's way. I wonder if they will invite him to eat Thanksgiving dinner with them this year? I suppose Ma told you that Denny's25 girl has a little thing. I am sure I cannot tell if it is a boy or girl. I believe a boy.
We have a pretty still time about here now. The Baptists have meet- ings occasionally at the schoolhouse. It is thought by some to be a plan of the Universalists to draw off Mr. Mitchell's society.
Charles Miller26 has not taken possession of the Post Office yet. Some think that the letter which he received from the Post Office De- partment was a refusal instead of an appointment. It will probably be known soon. Perhaps he is too busy in preparing for muster to attend to it at present.27
On December 22, 1832, Edward Reed writing to his sister, Jane Ann, then on a visit in Boston, draws the curtain and gives us a brief glimpse of social life in the town in the 1830's:
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