USA > Maine > Lincoln County > Waldoboro > History of old Broad Bay and Waldoboro, Volume 2 > Part 29
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60
In these years the town was one of the most active business centers of the state. Its population of 4569 reached in 1860 ranked it as one of the most populous communities in Maine, surpassed in size only by Brunswick, Camden, and thirteen cities. It was larger than Auburn and Waterville and was only a handful smaller than Brunswick, Camden, Ellsworth, and Gardiner.
The unwonted activity of the town, its great prosperity, and the wealth of its major men were due only in part to the virile enterprise of its leaders. To a great degree these men were favored by a world-wide economic trend which played in with conditions already existing in the town. These supporting trends were the China and Oriental trade, in full swing in these decades; coastwise and European shipping grew as the fruits of an expanding indus- try and developing continent were piled high in the warehouses of eastern seaports waiting shipping consignment to distant lands. Later in this era the discovery of gold in California and Australia led to the movement of great masses of men and goods. The de- mand for ships was the greatest in the history of sailing vessels, and the eastern seaboard possessed the artisans, the raw material, and the enterprise necessary to wrest the lion's share of the world car-
254
HISTORY OF OLD BROAD BAY AND WALDOBORO
rying trade from the British. In this, the greatest era of sail, Waldo- boro was not just one more shipbuilding town, but its output of vessels ranked it as one of the greatest shipbuilding centers in the United States.
For upwards of half a century economic conditions in Waldo- boro had been pointing to the climax of the Great Days. Every- thing needed was present for the development of its major indus- try. White oak, red oak, white pine, spruce, beech, rock maple, and hackmatack were to be had in easy proximity to the yards, and here was a good supply of efficient and relatively inexpensive artisans, qualified to turn from fishing or farming to seasonal em- ployment in the yards. These men had a background of experi- ence in the shipbuilding trade. In 1820, 14,248 tons of shipping had been built in the state, numbering most probably between ninety and one hundred vessels of all types. By 1834, the tonnage con- structed in the state had risen to 34,558, or a fleet of one hundred and fifty vessels. Lastly and of greatest importance, there had come into being over these years a new class of shipbuilding and ship- owning families, with a large experience in the industry, who were in the main responsible for American maritime supremacy in the great days of sail. These men had started modestly with a few small vessels under the command of competent and resourceful young captains. As their resources increased they built ever larger and finer ships, and kept them only during their most productive years. After a dozen or twenty years they were frequently sold to Ger- man and Italian buyers, and replaced by new vessels constructed in their own yards.
It was the families of this class that provided the capital and the enterprise which ushered in this town's great period. In the 1830's they were well on their way. The range and scope of their success is furnished by the ship figures of 1839. In this year the tonnage constructed in the United States was 118,309 tons. Of this total 38,936 tons were built in Maine, with no other state ap- proaching this amount. This was a fleet of fifty ships, fifty-six brigs, and seventy-five schooners. Of this total Maine tonnage nearly one third, or 12,173 tons, were constructed in Waldoboro. In other words, more than a tenth of the total American tonnage for this year was built on the shores of the Medomak River.1 Even with this excellent showing it may be added that 1839 was not a year in which the Waldoboro industry outdid itself.
During the three decades of the Great Days the demand for ships ebbed and flowed, but in Waldoboro there seems to have been little abatement in the mania for building. Yard after yard was opened up, until there were twenty yards, still known, and
1Louis C. Hatch, A History of Maine (New York, 1919), III, 678.
255
The Great Days
highly probable other yards whose identity can no longer be es- tablished. Wherever there was a little guzzle into which tiny brooks drained the water from the surrounding hills and wore out a little channel to the main channel of the river when its tides were down, the chances are old bed logs, some now deeply buried, will reveal the presence of a shipyard.
These yards were about evenly divided between the east and west banks of the river. On the west side below the first bridge was the yard of William Fish. Here a level run was built on the sloping bank and the ships were launched down into the river in a south-southeasterly direction. Next south of Fish, at Smouse's wharf, was one of the most famous and longest surviving of Waldo- boro yards, that of Reed, Welt & Company. Just south of this was the third yard, probably used by Edwin Achorn, where in a later day ships were built by MacIntire and Flanders.2 The fourth yard, next south of Achorn, was in the run due east of the house now occupied by Harold Winchenbach. The fifth yard just south of this was in the run due east of the house of Guy Waltz. The next yard south was in the run just north of the house of Charles Morse, from whose truck patch old bed logs have been dug out. One of the last vessels to be built in this yard was the J. Manchester Haynes, constructed by Alfred and Leavitt Storer in 1885. Here it was common practice to launch a vessel, let her bed in the flats, and then work her out to the channel on high tides.
The yard next south, and the seventh in order, was in line with the run due east of Charles Morse's house. The eighth yard was just south of Storer's Point. This was by nature one of the finest sites on the river, as the channel was close to the shore and connected with it by a sizable guzzle. Here the old bed pieces are still visible and here it was that William F. Storer with Captain Charles Comery and other collaborators built some of the largest and finest ships of this era. The old McFarland house, a landmark until very recently, was originally the cookhouse for the Storer yard. The ninth yard on the west bank was south of the Storer yard and was operated by Wilbur Newhall who came from Union and leased this land from Henry Newbert. South of Newhall on the shore of the present Burgess farm was the Hall yard where building was carried on by members of the family of Deacon Allen Hall.3 The last known yard on the west bank of the river was that of Stahl & Co .; the builder was Captain John Stahl, my great grand- father, and the location of his yard was on the shore of the farm now owned by the heirs of Hudson Stahl. Here, in accordance with the practice of many builders, the carpenters were boarded by Mrs.
2Oral tradition of Louis Kaler.
3Oral tradition of Elmer Eugley and Louis Kaler.
256
HISTORY OF OLD BROAD BAY AND WALDOBORO
Aaron Stahl in her home,4 and from these days the saying received its vogue in the family, when a great quantity of food was cooked, that it was enough to feed a ship carpenter crew.
On the east side of the river the roll of shipyards was nearly as impressive. Below the bridge and the old town landing, in the little cove just north of Alfred Storer's Coal and Lumber Yard, was the miracle yard of Joseph Clark, one of the greatest of the Waldoboro builders. The miracle of this yard lay in the fact that vessels so large could be launched with such safety in such a tight and rocky little body of water. The second yard on the east side was that of William Matthews, just south of the Storer coalyard and immediately back of the stable of Jesse Benner. Here to this day the little guzzle makes out to the channel and the old bed logs are still in evidence. Matthews built in the 30's, and thereafter the yard was used by numerous other builders. The third yard was on the site of the present Button Factory. This site at that time had not been filled in and was the scene of construction by build- ers now beyond identification.5 The old bed logs of this yard were unearthed years later by Walter Matthews while clearing the land.6 Below this yard, where the old Henry A. now rots by its rotting pier, was the yard of Henry Kennedy, the birth scene of some of the noblest Waldoboro ships.
A bit farther down the river there were more minor yards, the first on the shore of the land now owned by Solomon David; the second on the shore of the old Demuth farm directly opposite the William Storer yard; the third on the shore of the old Marble farm on the site of Carroll Cooney's boathouse, which when built in recent years disclosed the old bed logs of a shipyard;7 the fourth on the Castner farm on the site of the old Light Ferry; and a mile or more farther down the river, a yard at Schenck's Point. All these run into a total of twenty yards, and it is highly probable that this enumeration does not exhaust the list of yards active in the Great Days.
Apart from the main yards it is now most difficult to say who built what and where. Builders of the early period such as William Matthews, Charles Miller, and others, died or retired, and their yards were taken over by new hands. Partnerships, too, changed frequently, and a builder would shift the scene of his activity to another yard, or a new partner would join a firm for the building of a single ship, for which he would furnish most of the capital, or the command of which he would assume when the vessel was completed. It was also practice for a builder to lease a yard when
4Letter of Linda Stahl Lord, granddaughter of Capt. John Stahl.
5Map of 1857 and oral tradition of Alden Gleason.
6Oral tradition of Fred Matthews and Jane Brummitt, children of Walter Matthews. "Oral tradition, Elmer Eugley.
257
The Great Days
he wanted to build an especially large ship where greater yard fa- cilities and deeper water off the launching ways were imperative. Joseph Clark, as an example, built some of his largest vessels in the yard of William Storer. With such a variety of arrangements and changes, and with the scene shifting so rapidly, the picture is con- fused and the location of the yards of some of the minor builders is now impossible to determine.
The major builders in these years and later were Joseph Clark, Henry Kennedy, William Fish, Isaac Reed, George Smouse, Augustus Welt, Edwin Achorn, and William and Alfred Storer. The list of builders, regular and occasional, was impressive. Among them were John Kaler, Jr., Samuel Nash, Reuben Miller, William and James R. Groton, William Matthews, B -- Eugley, Jacob Eugley, -- Kaler, -- Burkett, John Lash, Edward Benner, Joseph Miller, James Cook, Charles Miller, Bela B. Haskell, Christian Schweier, -- Benner, -- Schwartz, George Sproul, Frederick Castner, -- Schuman, George Kaler, John Achorn, Benjamin L. Harriman, Justin Kennedy, John Kaler, Thomas Genthner, Sam- uel Morse, Francis Geyer, Thomas Gay, John A. Benner, Charles Vannah, -- Hall, Solomon Mink, Reuben Orff, Meaubec Raw- son, Robert Miller, Charles Comery, William Achorn, William Welt, Jacob Hahn, John Stahl, John A. Levensaler, Alexander Young, Daniel Castner, James Hovey, Aaron Kaler, Rufus Achorn, George W. Caldwell, -- Roberts and -- McIntyre. In summa- tion, it may be said that in these thirty years more than sixty of the town's leading citizens built ships.
In these decades while shipbuilding had its ups and downs in the cycle of prosperity and depression, it continued in Waldoboro with unabated fervor. The year 1842 seems to have been the sole exception, for in this year for some reason unknown there is a record of only one vessel having been built in the town. Normally there were a dozen or more on the ways at one time. In the year 1846 twenty-one vessels were launched in Medomak waters; in 1847, eleven; in 1848, twenty-five; in 1849, twenty-six; in 1850, twenty-two, and in 1851 and 1854, nineteen each. These were brave days, and the builders were audacious men. Today as one surveys the scenes of their labors, it is unbelievable that sizable ships could be launched from some of the sites where they were constructed, and it seems almost mythical in these times that in the year 1843 a thirty-three ton schooner was built in the dooryard of Jackson Russell in East Waldoboro and hauled overland by forty yoke of oxen to Sampson's landing8 where she was rigged and launched in the spring of 1844. The material and capital for this dubious ex- periment were furnished by Ellis Wade and William Russell. It is
8Shore of the farm now owned by S. E. Patrick.
258
HISTORY OF OLD BROAD BAY AND WALDOBORO
most probable that schooners of similar tonnage were built at dif- ferent points along the lower river, but all trace of such has long since vanished.
For some time after 1812 the bulk of the American Merchant Marine was made up of vessels under two hundred tons, and this fact was true of the Waldoboro vessels of the 1830's. The first of the shipbuilders to break with this early tradition was Joseph Clark, who was one of the greatest as well as one of the most venture- some and unconventional of the Waldoboro builders. He took pride in doing what others said could not be done. Mr. Clark had come along the hard way, and while basically kind of heart and generous in his human and civic relations, he was as a businessman hard, resourceful, exacting, and fearless. In Jefferson, his birthplace, his parents had died young, and as a boy he had gone to live with his uncle, Henry Kennedy, in the old Kennedy house on the hill on Wagner Road, where until he was sixteen he worked on the farm with his cousin, later General Henry Kennedy. After estab- lishing himself in Waldoboro he erected a brick home on the site of the present Clark house. The basement of the long ell of this brick structure was used as a dining room for his carpenters, and in his early period his young wife, Mary Ann King Clark, did most of the cooking for the hungry workmen. Later this home was magnificently furnished with mahogany, chinaware, rugs, and other embellishments brought by Mr. Clark's captains from dis- tant lands.
The character of Joseph Clark is brought out in many epi- sodes which still form a part of local legend. One of these has to do with the ship Caroline and Mary, named after two of his daughters. Built in 1849 and of 814 tons burden, she struck high and dry on the "Narrows Rock" while leaving the river. This was a possi- ble heavy loss of capital, and the good village folk dropped into Mr. Clark's office to talk and sympathize. Some of the prophecies uttered were rather dire: "Too bad, too bad! You'll never get her off; she'll lay there and go to pieces." At length losing his patience, Mr. Clark roared: "Let her go! Let her go! I'll build another just like her." This spirit was characteristic of Mr. Clark and most of his shipbuilding colleagues. It was the spirit that transcended ship- wreck and fire; the spirit that in 1854 rebuilt a town which had been laid in ashes in a few hours; the spirit that made the Great Days great.
On the hillside southwest of the old Parker Feyler house on Friendship Road was "Clark's lookout," as it was known a century ago. This site commanded a view of the lower river, the entire bay, and the waters beyond the "Narrows Rock." Mr. Clark and other shipbuilders stationed their lookouts when incoming ships were
259
The Great Days
expected in the river, and from this point the first appearance of an inbound ship was reported to the builders in their offices in the village. Such news would spread rapidly around the town, for such ships frequently brought back husbands, sweethearts, friends, money at the end of a long trip, and presents along with lovely things from distant lands. And many ships came to the river in those days. Robert P. T. Coffin in one of his books states that Waldoboro in the forties was the seventh largest port in the United States. I have not been able to verify this statement and believe that Mr. Coffin may have had the customs district in mind rather than the port, but be that as it may, the river offered a busy scene. Ships were returning for repairs, in and outbound with cargoes, and the coasting trade with Boston was a most active one.
There was as yet no overland trade route, and all the raw material necessary to feed the great shipbuilding industry and its many supplementary industries was imported. The oak came from Virginia in Waldoboro vessels, and all the rigging, gear, metal, and other accouterments used in getting a ship ready for sea came from Boston, also in Waldoboro vessels. This carrying trade was handled in this period by a fleet of more than a dozen coasters plying between Waldoboro and Boston from early spring until the ice closed the river, feeding the shipbuilding industry and transporting all supplies for local trade and for a large back-country consumption. The magnitude of the major industry with its multi- farious needs, the rapid increase in consumer wealth requiring goods for itself and for the back-country which fed from it, made Waldoboro not only a shipbuilding center but a port of consider- able size and volume of trade.
In these years the economic life of the town followed the pattern of the earlier decades of the century. There were still the back-districts with their poor folk sharing in a very limited way in the prosperity of the river valley people. Along the Medomak farms flourished. Their owners were nearly all shipyard artisans. To a large extent their land furnished them food, fuel, clothing, and shelter, and it was worked with the help of wives and children after hours. Shipyard wages were an additional source of income, and from it family nest eggs were laid by providing workers with good dwellings and security in their old age. In fact, it was in these years of assured incomes that the residential section of the village and adjacent country was built up. In a very real sense residential Waldoboro rose out of its shipyards. Surplus capital was also invested in ships and with large returns from this source nest eggs as well as larger fortunes grew apace. The figures of the aggregate tonnage of the shipping owned in the different cus- toms districts of the state furnish a fair index to the prosperity and wealth of the town.
260
HISTORY OF OLD BROAD BAY AND WALDOBORO
In the Great Days the local customs district embraced the territory from Nobleboro eastward to the Penobscot where the Belfast district began. In the year 1838, 46,661 tons of shipping were owned in the Waldoboro district. This was second in ton- nage to the Portland district with its 56,191 tons, the largest in the state. By 1842 the Waldoboro district had surpassed Portland. This tonnage continued to rise each year and by 1852 had reached a total of 112,707 tons, the largest in the state. The top figure was reached in 1856, the year before the great depression when the tonnage had risen to 155,783, a figure surpassed in New England only by Boston, with a tonnage of 193,320.9 This ownership was widely held in the district. There were large and small investors, each adding to his own fortune according to his capital available for investment. The largest fortune in the area, that of Joseph Clark, came from the courage and enterprise of a man who started with no capital and built the major part of his fleet in a yard so small, and in a tidal area so unpromising, that many questioned his judgment and sanity, but Mr. Clark never doubted and at his death left an estate valued upwards of three quarters of a million dollars.
All this increase in comfort and wealth did not come easily to artisans or builders. By the latter great risks were incurred and great losses met, and for the workmen there were long days of toil that can hardly be imagined in our own time. The working day was twelve hours, and at certain seasons of the year this meant "from sun to sun." There was no machinery to lighten the heavy work of the building process, save such crude mechanical devices as the men might prepare and set up themselves. The hundreds of Waldoboro ships that went from the ways into the water in these years were literally the product of hand tools manipulated by human power. Building was a test of brains as well as brawn, for skill and know-how alone could ease the task for muscles and make the labor endurable. These prodigies of skilled toil were performed for scant pay: a dollar per day was top wage for a master work- man, and for the young and unskilled learner five cents an hour was normal pay.10 These rates applied to the boom years. In times of depression when building slackened and there was little to do except repair jobs on vessels returning to the home port, perhaps for a layover to await better times, the carpenter would work for as little as fifty cents a day. In addition to the men who built the ships in Waldoboro yards there was a great host of local men who captained and manned them. The wages of these men, too, were on a level which made the operation of ships profitable. A mate
9Figures compiled by Wm. H. Rowe, from American State Papers.
10Ledgers of Wm. Coggins of Surry, Me., Portland Press Herald, Oct. 19, 1941.
261
The Great Days
received from forty to fifty dollars a month; a cook fifteen to twenty dollars, and seamen eight to ten dollars per month.11
The captains received considerably higher wages and in most cases were part owners of their ships, which gave them a propor- tionate share of the profits of the vessels. These captains were among the most prosperous of Waldoboro citizens, enjoying a great prestige in the town. They lived the part and acted the part with such characteristic accessories of dress as tall hats, cut-a-way coats, and canes. They lived on a scale commensurate with the great shipbuilders and erected some of the most pretentious homes in the town. Among such were the following: Captain Herman Kopperholdt (residence of Stephen Patrick); Captain Thomas Wade (recent residence of Enoch Robertson); Captain Isaac W. Comery (former home of Captain A. F. Stahl); Captain Andrew Storer (former home of C. H. Lilly); Captain Harvey Lovell (resi- dence of Harry Brown).
The youthfulness of the ship captains was almost a tradition of the American Merchant Marine in the days of its ascendancy. A classic example is that of the nineteen-year-old Zachariah F. Silsbee, who took command of the Bryant and Sturgis ship Herald in 1803, and sailed for Batavia. Such men were usually drawn to the sea as boys and in their early teens were found on ships as cabin boys or apprentice seamen. They were ambitious and utilized every opportunity for advancement, and sometimes through the interest of a friendly officer received some training in navigation.
The annals of Waldoboro shipping are not without examples of such youthful shipmasters. My father as a boy of seventeen years went to Havana and brought his father's ship on to New York while the latter lay ill in the Cuban port with a case of yellow fever. Captain Isaac W. Comery was another Waldoboro boy who took early to the sea. At the age of thirteen he shipped on a coaster in the Waldoboro-Boston trade. With the experience thus gained after two years, he walked to Camden and shipped in the schooner Wanderer, Captain Silas Clark, for a trip to New Orleans. He stayed with Clark for seven years in the Wanderer, Republic, and Lancet, and in his last voyage in the Lancet to Antwerp and Portu- gal, went as first officer at the age of twenty-two. In these days, after speed had become a matter of supreme importance, as much speed was due to the skill and energy of the captains as to the struc- ture of their vessels. Sail was shortened or taken in only as a last resort; chances were invariably taken, and it was the spirit of youth with its love of hazard and chance that met the require- ments of this new mania for speed.
11Letter of Capt. Thomas Trott, master of ship Alfred Storer, in possession of Al- fred Storer, Waldoboro, Me.
262
HISTORY OF OLD BROAD BAY AND WALDOBORO
During the heyday of shipbuilding Gardner Kinsell Reed, a son of Colonel Isaac, acted unofficially as the agent of many of the Waldoboro builders in Boston. On order he purchased stores and gear, acted as agent in the sale of vessels or parts of vessels, and was instrumental in securing cargoes for local ships. Evidence of such activity is to be found in the letters of Isaac Reed to his brother, from which a few excerpts are listed here: Frederick Cast- ner's bark Oberon, was sold on February 19, 1849, and Mr. Reed comments: "This was the greatest sale that has been made for sometime in these parts. The owners can well afford to pay you full commissions." "Then he adds: "Reuben Miller would like to sell the John Dutton, if the Captain will agree to sell her. You can talk to Captain Burkett. ... Miller says he will furnish Burkett with another vessel."12
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.