USA > Maine > Lincoln County > Waldoboro > History of old Broad Bay and Waldoboro, Volume 2 > Part 32
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Expectation was at a high pitch and full preparation was made. Many disposed of all property, made ascension gowns and
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assembled in open spaces or on hilltops, and even housetops - anywhere where they would not be caught and tangled in trees as they moved skyward at the signal of the trumpet.
In Waldoboro there were those who disposed of their goods against the day and donned their ascension robes; there were others who while unbelieving, quaked with fear that the event might happen and blanched before the serene confidence of the believers. The great majority scoffed, but all gathered on the appointed day at the place previously decided upon. This was the river bank north of Clark's shipyard and on the west bank opposite the home of Augustus Welt. The banks "were lined with people, who brought their food for the day and waited for the end. Many had sold their farms and cattle." It was a tense day in the town and as it waned hope dimmed in the breasts of the believers, while the jests of the scornful became louder until under the kindly cover of darkness the faithful stole away to their earthly shelters.4 In the village it was the great joke of the decades. I dimly recall in my boyhood hearing old folks retell these events and laugh merrily over the year of the great delusion.
It will be remembered that in 1760 there were but two counties in the "Province of Maine," York and Lincoln, and that from their great areas the other fourteen counties were carved out over the years. In 1854 Sagadahoc had been constituted by detaching it from the western territory of Lincoln. This amputa- tion left Wiscasset, the shire town, on the very western edge of the county, no longer central, and only inconveniently accessible to such towns as Thomaston, Rockland, and Camden, located as they were on the eastern boundaries of the county. The real center of the county was Waldoboro, eighteen miles removed from Wis- casset and Camden at the western and eastern ends of the county, and clearly of top importance from the standpoint of industry and wealth. The citizens of Waldoboro had strong convictions on this question. A good bit of undercover work was done and there was considerable support in the eastern towns for making Waldo- boro the county seat. At a Town Meeting, March 9, 1857, it was modestly voted
that the selectmen5 together with the Hon. R. C. Webb of the Senate and Edgar Day6 of the House be a Committee to make the necessary arrangements for the town to appear before a Committee of the Legis- lature, who have under consideration the question of making Waldo- boro the shire town of the County, and that the Selectmen be authorized to draw from the Treasury funds to meet the expenses.7
4Oral narrative of Augustus Welt to his granddaughter, Rose Welt Davis. 5 Alfred Storer, Augustus Welt, George Eugley.
"The town's representatives in the Legislature, 1857.
"Data drawn from the Town Clerk's Records.
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This movement had in reality come to a head in 1856, when petitions were presented to the Legislature signed by Albion P. Oakes, Bela B. Haskell, and others of Waldoboro, as well as promi- nent citizens of Union, Washington, Warren, Friendship, Bremen, Nobleboro, Bristol, Damariscotta, Jefferson, and Newcastle. In 1857 Isaac Reed promoted the idea and drew up a petition with ninety-two signatures including all the prominent citizens of Wal- doboro and representative men of the other towns mentioned. In this document the position was taken that the county was now in its final geographical limits, that
the Business of the County at its southwestern extremity creates general dissatisfaction. . . . Since no further division of the County is feasible ... therefore your petitioners would represent to and ask your honorable body as the only and best way to settle this vexed question is to make Waldoboro the Shire town of the County of Lincoln, giving ample time for the erection, removal and disposal of the County building and prop- erty of the County.
This petition was referred to the committees on Division of Counties of the House and Senate, and it was ordered published in the county newspapers before the 22nd of February in order that all interested persons might "appear and show cause why the Prayer of said Petition should not be granted." At this point state records are inadequate, but hearings were apparently held and the movement blocked, for in 1858, the committee of both houses reported "the same under consideration," and asked "leave to re- port that the Petitioners have leave to withdraw."8 In reality it was not the influence of a vigorously protesting Wiscasset that blocked the execution of this plan, but rather influences emanating from Thomaston, Rockland, Rockport, and Camden, where plans were already being put forward to slice the eastern section from Lincoln and convert it into Knox County. This plan was con- summated in 1860, and it left Waldoboro's aspiration on an un- tenable footing, since all the grounds originally alleged against Wiscasset applied with equal force to itself, now on the extreme eastern fringe of the county.
There is perhaps nothing in the annals of the Great Days that so completely and strongly reflects the courage, faith, and initiative of the town's business leaders as their unswerving will in facing tragic emergencies, for the Great Days were days of adversity as well as prosperity. Twice in these two decades the village was literally wiped out by fire. Fire was always a menace, for the early town was built of wood, and fire protection was most inadequate. The only brick building devoted to business was the property of George Sproul. In 1835 he had moved the old Sproul
8Maine State Library: Legal Paper 12, 1858.
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mansion back from the corner now occupied by the shoe store of Clarence Benner and erected a brick building extending part way along the street front to Dog Lane. Fire protection consisted of a single engine, the little old Water Witch, purchased in 1838, and a small local fire company organized in 1839. This was all that stood between the town and catastrophe.
The summer of 1846 had been both hot and dry. In July and August the mercury in the shade hovered in the nineties, and a calamitous drought lasted into October. In the neighboring town of Rockland water was sold on the street by the gallon.ยบ Every- thing was as dry as tinder and the only need was someone to strike the spark. This came on October 10, 1846, when two small chil- dren playing with matches in the barn of Andrew Sides on Shady Avenue, communicated the flame to a pile of shavings. The wind was blowing strong from the north, and in a short time the Sides property and the buildings of T. D. Currier, next adjoining on the west (the site of the present Baptist parsonage) were wrapped in flames. The sparks jumped the new home of Isaac Reed (site of the Waldo Theater) and ignited William Sproul's barn directly across the street.
From Sproul's the fire spread to Dog Lane and moving east- ward cleaned up both sides of this street to Main and then west- ward on Main Street toward the bridge. The efforts of the one small engine in the town were futile to check the blaze. In two hours a substantial portion of the village was in ruins. With dark- ness, the lawless element in the town broke loose, and fired by rum it spent a good part of the night in fighting and rioting. The fire broke out again Sunday morning when an incendiary set fire to the house of Doctor William Ludwig on the site of the present Public Library, which together with Gay's Store adjoining were destroyed.
The following contemporary account was published in a Thomaston paper. The details differ slightly from the local tra- dition, but in the main outline the two accounts are the same:
The most melancholy and destructive conflagration which has vis- ited this section within our remembrance occurred in Waldoboro on Saturday and Sunday last. The fire broke out at 3 o'clock P.M. on Sat- urday; and originated from some small boys who were at play in a barn belonging to Mr. Andrew Sides. It appears that one of them was smok- ing a straw, which accidentally dropped among the hay; in an instant the barn was in flames which soon communicated to the dwelling houses of Mr. Sides and Mr. T. D. Currier; the wind was blowing quite fresh, and from there the flames spread to other buildings in the vicinity. Al- though every exertion was used on the part of the citizens, the fire was not subdued until nearly the whole business section of the village was
"Press clipping in my possession.
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reduced to ashes. Within the burnt district were 16 or 20 stores, the Medomak Bank, four lawyers' and three doctors' offices, the Odd Fel- lows and Masonic Halls, two Harness Shops, one Tailor and two Mil- liners' shops, the Post Office, and various other offices and shops, together with several dwelling houses. The amount of loss is not yet ascertained, but it must be considerably over $50,000; $3000.00 of which was insured at the Georges office in this town.
The principal sufferers are Col. George Sproul, H. Bliss, Wm. H. Manning, J. Hovey, B. B. Haskell, E. Benner, A. T. Moses, A. Hovey, C. S. & W. S. Brown, J. A. Levensaler, J. B. Humphrey, T. Hemenway, Capt. C. Sampson, Genthner & Morse, J. Sides, Dr. Wm. Ludwig, Isaac G. Reed, J. Brown, J. Clark, J. H. Kennedy and Moses Young.
We understand that Col. Sproul was by far the greatest loser; his loss being about $25,000, with little or no insurance.
One of the Thomaston engines arrived at the scene of disaster about half past ten Saturday evening, and succeeded in saving several buildings, and a new brig on the stocks.
We regret to learn that a Mr. Miller was so badly injured that his life is now despaired of. Several other individuals sustained slight in- juries in their endeavors to rescue property.
Following this devastating fire Waldoboro was rebuilt with a speed that was characteristic of the unflagging vitality of these years, but it was rebuilt of wood with the exception of a fine brick block erected in 1850 by Joseph Clark on the street front just west of Clark's Hall. The fire hazard was still present, and it was a nightmare for the businessmen. Do what they could to secure the needed protection of the village property their efforts were always blocked by the vote of the back-district folk. These people had been consistently exploited by some of the wealthy village vultures, and in consequence a deep-seated suspicion and enmity prevailed. To them it was a matter for rejoicing when certain village squires were struck by the avenging hand of flame. They just refused to be taxed for the protection of their enemies. In 1846 they declined to allow the purchase of an additional engine, whereupon the funds were raised by subscription in the village, and Captain Benjamin Roberts was sent to Boston to negotiate for a new engine. A secondhand Hanneman tub was secured and brought down on the last trip of one of the coasters. In fact, it had to be landed on the ice and hauled to the village. It was dubbed the Medomak and rendered its inadequate service for many years.
In 1849 the village was again threatened with destruction. Somewhat better fire protection and the early discovery of the blaze alone saved the town. Jane Ann in one of her newsy letters comments on this episode and affords a peek at the local scene in the 1840's:
On Friday night or rather Saturday morn' about one o'clock as a man was putting water on board of a vessel, he saw a light, which he supposed to be fire, in Russell's Barber Shop. By the time the alarm
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could be given the flames had burst out, and the whole building was one mass of fire. The wind was blowing almost a gale from the northwest; in a very short time Mr. Clark's large store and the house of Gorham's10 were on fire. The efforts of the few persons there, were first directed to save Gorham's building, but from the direction of the wind which was blowing the fire into the thickest part of the village, they abandoned that and bent all their efforts to save Clark's, for if that had burned, and it was pretty well on fire, the whole corner must have been laid a sec- ond time in ashes. It is said if Clark's had burned, the whole square from the Baptist meeting house to Mr. Schenck's must have gone. The post office, which stood west of Gorham's building was torn down. Jery Side- linger's store which stood behind Gorham's was burned. I felt badly when I saw that once well finished store and house wrapped in flames. I could bring Gorham distinctly before my mind as he used to look when at work planning and overseeing its construction, yet I rejoice too that the fire was discovered in season for the inmates to escape with their effects.11
These fires produced an ugly situation in the village. The voters had refused in 1848 to purchase another engine, and the village property owners seemed left to the mercy of chance, for even insurance companies were unwilling to give coverage to village property. The situation is revealed in a paragraph of Jane Ann's letter:
Edward wrote you last evening to have his library insured. I hope you will attend to it immediately, as there is great danger of fire in this village, and only one little engine. It is said that it will be impossible to get buildings insured in the village after present policies expire, because there is no fire department or organization. The Thomaston office re- fused Gorham's building but the Gorham office took it.
For many years the village folk had been longing for release from the tyranny of the back-district voters, and had been figur- ing out ways to free themselves from the relentless veto power of the poor. The fires in the forties clearly rendered this need more acute. The village people had good legal brains in their midst and were not lacking in resourcefulness. Furthermore, for three successive terms beginning in 1847, General William Cochran was the town's representative in the Legislature, and it was through legislative fiat that a road to freedom was charted. On August 20, 1850, an Act to Incorporate the Waldoboro Village Corpora- tion was passed by the House and Senate and signed by the Gov- ernor. In this act the area of the Corporation comprised a "terri- tory beginning at the northeast corner of Captain Charles Samp- son's brick building12 in the village and extending one mile in distance there from in all directions." Under the terms of this Charter the voters of the Corporation were "authorized to raise
10Gorham Smouse, half-brother of Jane Ann, at this time deceased.
11Jane Ann Reed to her brother Charles in Boston, Dec. 9, 1849. 12 Balch's Corner.
-
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money to defray the expenses of a night watch, of a police to main- tain security, good order and quiet within its limits, for the pur- chase of one or more fire engines and all other necessary fire apparatus, and for the construction of reservoirs." The officers of the Corporation were a clerk, a treasurer, collector, and three assessors to be chosen by ballot and sworn each January. Assess- ments were to be made on polls and real estate of residents and nonresidents. John H. Kennedy or John Balch were authorized to have a meeting called, and the Charter was to become operative as soon as accepted by the voters of the Corporation.
Little more is known of the village Magna Charta, for the whereabouts of its records, if still in existence, are unknown. Such action, however, may have mollified the intransigeance of the back- district folk by placing in the hands of the village people a sledge which on short notice could be used to shatter the tyranny of the back-district vote. If so it could have served its purpose by main- taining a balance of power and by forcing a more mutual and equitable recognition of group needs. On the other hand, the Charter may never have been accepted by the Corporation voters and in consequence may never have become operative. In the light of subsequent events this last inference seems the most probable.
These checkered years passed, marked by rapid contrasts of unparalleled prosperity and crushing disaster. At the very peak of the greatest era of shipbuilding in American history, and this town was one of the great centers, the whole business community in a few short hours became nonexistent. It was in 1854, a year of freaky weather, with snow five and six feet deep on April first. Thereafter came a long period of warm weather, so warm that the corn spindled by July 3rd, and then in midsummer, long, hot, and rainless days. By mid-August all vegetation was dry and parched, and huge forest fires raged at one time in nine different localities in Knox and Lincoln counties. A mere spark in the right spot was all that was needed in the wooden village on the Medomak to terminate its existence.
The catastrophe came at one o'clock in the afternoon of August 25th, when fire started in the stable connected with the Tavern, on the site of the present Municipal parking lot. The blaze ripped through the wooden structures with the speed of the wind and the whole block east to Jefferson Street was ablaze at one time.
From this area it leaped the street in a southeasterly direction and laid everything in ashes on both sides of Friendship Road. It spread east, south and west. To the westward it stopped only at the river, destroying one bark and one ship on the stocks as well as the lumber for another large ship. On the south it seems to have gone down Friendship Road at least as far as the site of
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the present brick schoolhouse. To the east it burned Dog Lane to the Benner house, where it was checked by "Fire Fly No. 3 Company," an organization of young men and boys formed in 1853. A small engine had been bought in Warren for $25.00, and George Sproul had furnished a supply of hose. In this conflagra- tion the Fly Company checked the fire burning northward at Aaron Kaler's home (the Poor House), saving this residence as well as that of Sam Jackson (present Glidden home) and probably the house and the Baptist Church just across the street. In the burned area were both banks (contents saved), the Post Office, the Custom House, the hotel and several livery stables.
The awful destructiveness of this fire may be in part in- ferred from a contemporary document issued by a group of village leaders shortly after the blaze had done its work:
On Friday, the 25th of August, inst., at about 1 o'clock P.M. this once flourishing village was visited by one of the most destructive fires on record.
So extensive was the conflagration that not a store, workshop, Pub- lic House or Office is left. Nearly all the furniture in the houses, the tools in the workshops, the libraries in the offices, and the goods in the stores (thirty-seven in number) were destroyed, and consequently no articles of Provisions, Clothing, Furniture or Medicine, can be purchased. Portions of goods and furniture which were taken to places of apparent security were burned.
More than seventy families are now homeless, and would be suffer- ing for the common necessaries of life, but for the unexampled liberal- ity of the citizens of neighboring towns in supplying the destitute with food and raiment, but few having been able to save even a change of clothing.
The fire spread with such fearful rapidity, that in less than forty minutes from its discovery every portion of the village, which is now a heap of smouldering ruins, was envelloped in one sheet of flame. The destruction was at once awful and appalling.
The magnitude of the loss may be conceived when we state, that if these quarters of the business portion of any town or city in this country should be burnt at once, with all the goods, furniture and clothing, it would not be a greater calamity than has befallen us.
At a meeting of the citizens holden the following evening, the un- dersigned were chosen a Committee to appeal to the sympathies of a generous public, and we now make this appeal in behalf of our destitute fellow citizens, many of whom barely escaped with their lives.
The whole amount of the property destroyed from the best esti- mate we are able to make, will not fall short of a half million dollars, not more than one third of which is covered by insurance.
Isaac Reed B. B. Haskell Henry Kennedy George Allen James Cook Alfred Hovey A. W. Clark John Balch
Alfred Storer John Bulfinch
James Schwartz, 2nd
William S. Cochran
John H. Kennedy
M. M. Rawson
William A. Schenck D. W. Seiders
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The wealth and vitality of the town in these days is nowhere manifested more vividly than in its reaction to this disaster. The people of other towns responded most generously to the needs of the first few hours when money could buy nothing because there was nothing to buy. Food and clothing were accepted; beyond that the town took care of its own needs. How? One episode will answer this question. At the time of the fire, Athearn Clark and his young bride, Mary, lived in the little house just south of the Baptist Church, and their little home housed twenty-one of the homeless victims of the conflagration. On the Sunday following the disaster, great crowds from neighboring towns visited the scene out of curiosity and sympathy, but all was not selflessness. Other towns and other interests sought to attract some of the abler Waldoboro businessmen, such as Joseph Clark, into their own fold, but these men remained on the old scene to a man.
Temporary accommodations for business and trade were raised at once, and following this the town like the fabled Phoenix rose miracle-like from its own ashes. It was a wooden town that burned to the ground and a brick village that rose in its place. If the destroyed village of wood represented an uninsured loss of $400,000, the new brick village with all replacements of goods and equipment represented a new capital investment of well over half a million dollars, which in itself was an herculean feat for a town of four thousand-odd people, and a living testimonial of the courage and wealth of the villagers of those days.
By the summer of 1855 the new village, essentially the same as we know it today, had come into being. Thomas Gay built the Gay residential block now owned by Ashley Walter; John Willett constructed the adjoining block, now the home of the Public Library; the present wooden building now owned by Elsa Mank was put up by E. V. Philbrook; William F. Storer built the brick block now occupied by Eaton's store; Francis and Ed- ward Hahn built the "Arch" Kaler block next adjoining, and as is the case today this was a jewelry store operated by Francis Hahn; the present Crowell block was erected by General Henry Kennedy, and Weston's block by Otis Miller; James Schwartz and Daniel Castner built the Ida Stahl block and were in business on this site for many years; the large corner block was rebuilt, it is believed, by Charles Sampson, and for decades this corner was known as Balch's Corner.
On the east side of the street a single block was raised run- ning south from Main Street to Dog Lane. This was the largest vil- lage unit at the time and was erected by George Sproul. The Kuhn block on the corner of Dog Lane was put up at a somewhat later date by George Kuhn and Otis Benner of Nobleboro; the old
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hotel just south of this corner was also built later, by Alexander Wiley. The present Duane residence was built for Harlan Wins- low by Mrs. John H. Kennedy. On the south side of Dog Lane, Joseph Clark rebuilt the present Floyd Benner property on the site of his brick house and the two houses due east, the one now burned, occupied for many years by his daughter, Celeste, and the brick house next east built for his son, Joseph Webster Clark; the present Benner homestead was rebuilt after the fire by Edward Benner.13
On the north side of Main Street the present Stahl Tavern, built by Dr. John G. Brown, had survived the fire as had the residence of Isaac Reed (site of the Waldo Theater). The Hon- orable Isaac Reed had built this house in 1841, at least we may so infer from a letter of Colonel I. G. Reed under date of August 11, 1841, to his son, Charles M., in Boston which states that "Isaac's house is raised, the window frames in, and it is partly boarded. The work is going on rapidly." At the time of this fire Isaac Reed was representing this district in the thirty-second Congress. Through his influence an appropriation was secured to purchase a site and build a Post Office and Custom House. The site was an orchard on the Isaac Reed property, and the building was the present Post Office which was erected in 1855, and en- larged and improved in 1908. On the south side of Main Street running to the river west of the Four Corners, the property was owned by Joseph Clark. Here he built the house, now occupied by Medora A. Perry, for his daughter, Celeste, and also a wooden block (site of present Floyd Benner block), and Clark's Hall, now known as the Star Theater. This he built primarily to please his daughters who were intensely interested in amateur dramatics. It was the scene of many local plays and operas with Ella directing, Mary furnishing the music, and Caroline and Celeste designing the costumes.
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