USA > Maine > Lincoln County > Waldoboro > History of old Broad Bay and Waldoboro, Volume 2 > Part 33
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Across the street on the north side of Main west of Jefferson Street, a new hotel, the Medomak House, went up on the site of the present parking lot, and on the corner, the finest block in town, known as the Union block, owned in later years by Gay & Matthews. Thus gradually over the years following 1854, the village of the present came into being. Not least among the town's new architectural feats was the new Brick School House. After the fire of 1854 the village's older pupils had schooling in the vestry of the Baptist Church, while the citizens of old District No. 6 girded their loins for the educational triumph of the century, the erection of the old High School, which was completed in 1857, not the work of the town, but of the single village district.
13For this data I am indebted to Archibald Kaler, born 1856.
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The bell tower and the bell were later additions and were dedicated in 1888. Their cost of about $300 was paid from funds raised under the direction of Dora Howard York.
In these years Waldoboro was by no means a mere self- contained local unit. For decades now its ships and their captains and crews, visiting the most distant and strangest parts of the earth, had made all Waldoboro economically and geographically minded, and quick to evaluate new developments arising in any part of the world, since they were bound to affect for better or for worse the fortunes of a community whose life was trade.
On the 24th of January, 1848, James W. Marshall discov- ered several bits of shining metal in the earth taken from Colonel Sutter's mill race in Colomo, California. Swift clippers bore the news to distant parts and the race to El Dorado was on. Strong tremors of excitement ran the length of the northeastern seaboard and set off a great migration. Over the plains and the Cordilleras, across the Isthmus and around Cape Horn, gold hunters thronged to California. By November 1849 more than eighty thousand im- migrants, "the forty-niners," reached the land of promise. There was a great stirring in all the little seaport towns, the fitting out of ships, the hasty assembling of cargoes needed in a great new community that had sprung into being so suddenly that it could not provide for its own needs, and then the hosts of forty-niners setting their houses in order against a hasty departure. In the town of Warren thirty-one natives left for California. In Waldo- boro there were considerably more.
From North Waldoboro went John Burnheimer, Silas Storer, Parker Newbert, and George Sidelinger. The journey was around Cape Horn, a six months' trip. Before they reached their destina- tion, they were obliged to eat moulded bread, and even that Was rationed. Coming home they crossed the Isthmus where the route was strewn with the bones of those who had failed to reach the Atlantic side. Newbert and Sidelinger never returned, but Burn- heimer and Storer enjoyed some success. On his return the former built the most elaborate stand of buildings ever erected in North Waldoboro, which were destroyed by fire circa 1938. Silas Storer married Burnheimer's sister, Sarah, and moved to Morrill, Maine, where he set himself up in trade and enjoyed much prosperity. A story of those days as told by John Burnheimer still passes cur- rency among the old people in North Waldoboro. It concerned some Chinamen who visited Mr. Burnheimer's mine every day for some time. After a lapse of days with no visits, Mr. Burn- heimer paid a call on the Chinamen to see what they were doing and found they had made a machine exactly like the one the Maine men were using to hoist debris from the mine, and that
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where they had broken and repaired their machine the China- men had done likewise.14
The data available do not furnish us with a consecutive story of the impact of the discovery of gold on the life in the village. I recall from my boyhood some of our early neighbors who were in the gold rush, William Castner, brother of Gorham, Alexander Wiley, and Byron Castner. The latter's preparations for departure were hasty and certainly rather picturesque, for of him it was re- lated that he converted his property into cash, placed it in a chamber mug, and buried it under the dirt floor of his cellar (the present Lawrence Davis homestead). Such a tale is too inadequate, even though it may be entirely characteristic, to furnish more than a clue to the rush and excitement in the village as the move- ment to the gold fields got under way. The fullest account of these years is furnished by the correspondence of the Reed family which provides us with a series of glimpses of the Waldoboro scene, of the men going, their financing of the trip, the excite- ment and bustle among the local capitalists, of plans materializing and falling through, of handbills and of competition for passengers among the shipping men. This kaleidoscopic view offered by ex- cerpts from the letters follows: Isaac Reed in a letter of Septem- ber 5th, 1849, to his brother, Gardner K., in Boston comments on his having paid part of the passage of Robert Sidelinger, "a mid- dling ship carpenter," and then he adds: "Bateman wants to go very much. I am willing to pay one half of his passage, and pre- miums on his life insurance policy for 2 or 3 years ... and also furnish him with the necessary outfit. He would be willing to go in the forecastle." Bateman went and brother Gardner K. in Boston made the arrangements there for the passage.
Under date of December 3rd, 1849, Isaac Reed wrote to his brother, Gardner K. in Boston:
Mr. Austin Kaler of this place who had made arrangements to go to California in Gay's Bark, wished me to ask you, if he should come to Boston and bring with him two house frames and put them on board your ship and pay half his passage before starting, if you would take a lien on the frames for the balance of his passage and freight of frames. If Gay's vessel does not go I think you will have several passengers from here and some freight. Hovey [James] has written to New York and if he has a favorable answer will send the bark there for the balance of cargo.
Under date of December 6th, Isaac Reed continues to brother Gardner K .:
J. Hovey and other owners of Gay's Bark have concluded not to send her to California. Several persons who were expecting to go on
14 Based on data furnished me by Willie R. Walter.
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her are now talking about going in your ship. I shall do all I can to induce them to do it. There are here several house frames, say ten or more, which they would send if they were sure you would take them . . . They will go by Mr. Vannah's new brig which will be ready to sail this week ... Charles Currier says that he shall come up and five or six more with him.
On December 9th, 1849, Jane Ann wrote to her brother, Gardner K. in Boston, the following:
William [Reed] says Gay's or Hovey's vessel is not going to Cali- fornia; he talked with the two Webbs, Hahns, Charles Currier, Samuel M. Morse and one other person from Bristol, who talked of going. They would not secure a passage, but said they would call upon you and see the ship before engaging passage. They are on board of Vannah's vessel, Capt. Farnsworth. There is on board of Vannah's vessel also a Kaler with two house frames. Sam'l Morse, I believe is on board of Newbit, who is going down the channel this eve. Vannah's went down the river this morning. There was ice in the channel which detained Newbit. They removed it to-day. The persons named told or promised William that if the ship was as represented on the hand bills, and they could get pas- sage as cheap as in any other vessel, they would go in your ship; they said perhaps as there were so many going from one place, they might get a reduction on price of passage.
On the last day of the year 1849 Isaac wrote to brother Gardner in Boston: "Your ship is long in getting away. If all the boys from this place go in her, you should give William a present, say a good overcoat. He used a considerable influence with them and worked hard to induce them to go."
In his letter to Gardner K. of January 19, 1850, Isaac notes: "I received a letter from Bateman dated at Rio. He complains of the Captain, says all the passengers dislike him, and that he has written you asking you to cancel his contract."
On the 27th of January, 1850, Isaac wrote to Gardner K. concerning the California plans and activities of his father-in-law, Judge Redington, whom he notes
has been doing considerable in the California business with a prospect of making money. He shipped about 90 M of lumber from Bath on September last in ship Hampton, Capt. Davis. This he has been offered $100.00 per M in advance over all expenses. He and General Redington bought the brig, Ceres, of Portland and loaded her with lumber and in- cluding a steamboat of about the same size that Moore put on your ship. Judge Redington says that Moore in some way put the soft over you. He says you should have had at least $2500 freight on their steamer in- stead of $1000 and thinks it will spoil the profits of the voyage.
In the early months of 1850 Gardner K. began to think of going to California. In March Isaac wrote to him as follows:
We were sorry to hear that you were sick and therefore disap- pointed in going to California. Perhaps it is all for the best. Shall you
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go if you get well? I cannot find a ticket for sale here. All that have them will go. You probably have seen what the newspapers say that are not bought of the proper parties but of speculators, that the per- sons holding them are not furnished with a passage on the other side of the Isthmus.
Again on April 7, 1850, Isaac inquires of Gardner: "Shall you go to California? You will probably remember that someone said: Never go clamming at high water, so I said to you three months since. ... Thomas Genthner, Atwell, Harriman and Gold- smith leave this week."
Gardner K. went to California in 1850. His letters to his family reveal a story of hardship, fluctuating fortunes, and dis- appointments. They are filled with comments on the death of his mother, on old familiar scenes, the happy episodes of his child- hood, references to other Waldoboro men in this new land, and they afford a picture of the varied life in the gold fields. A few excerpts follow:
"The tunnel that was commenced by an English Company and myself was completed and a quartz mill erected upon the head, but it did not pay. .. . They lost about $20,000, I, my time. The things mother and you sent by the ship Wings of the Morn- ing I never got, but did not like to inform you of it, as I knew you would feel sorry."15
On March 2, 1857, Gardner writes to Jane Ann the following:
Now as regards myself - last December on the 11th I mounted my horse and took a turn through the Sacramento City and called to see Judge Redington a short time before the boat left, found him well al- though looking considerably older.
At Sacramento I took the boat ... to San Francisco. Great was the change there, for almost five years had elapsed since I had seen that place, and during this time the improvements were beyond my expec- tations ... buildings erected without regard to costs. ... The women looked like walking dry goods shops, and the men vying with each other in their ostentatious way of life. ... I saw a man there who came to California in the same boat that I did. He told me at one time he con- sidered his property worth $370,000. Now it is doubtful if it would sell for enough to pay his debts - so with many others.
I intend to start for the mountains tomorrow, provided it does not storm. I am just making a decent living, but hope this spring to do better.
Thomas W. Farnsworth is now at work on Sand Hill, about 16 miles below here. ... I frequently see John Turner, wife and child, saw him yesterday in town. They are all well.
On November 3rd, 1857, back in Nevada County, he wrote again: "I wrote to the public administrator of Amador County, but have received no answers. I believe you did not state the name
15Gardner K. to Jane Ann, Nevada County, March 15, 1855.
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of the place, only the county in which your neighbor's brother16 was killed. ... The name of the place should have been mentioned. In your next letter mention place, date etc."
On February 19, 1859, Gardner K. wrote from Relief Hill, Nevada County, California, to his young nephew, Redington, in Waldoboro:
I now own two sets of diggins consisting of nine claims in one body, and have staked my judgment against all of the others. If they turn out well I shall make some money, if not then I shall in California parlance be "broke," and even worse than that as I am in debt. Should these claims turn out badly, I shall pack up my "dudds" and try another place, although this would be rather hard as I am the only one left here now on this Hill of the many old miners that have mined here, their places being supplied by new ones.
When I shall be able to start for home I hardly know. ... If good luck should attend me perhaps in a year or so. If bad perhaps never. I have contended against fate for eight long years, and am neither con- quered or subdued. ... By "friends" and a confiding disposition I got swindled out of my property. I mean to accumulate property again and to do it fairly and honestly.
In regards to California the climate is delightful, society bad. The inhabitants generally selfish, unprincipled, vulgar, dishonest, low-minded, intemperate set of men. The women ditto. I speak of them as a class, the exceptions few. ... I do not fret or worry much. I ceased to do that sometime ago, but keep struggling on . . . and I think I enjoy myself about as well, living as I do in my little Log Cabin, as I did when in Boston, surrounded by comfort, style and luxuary. I have never seen or heard of Martin Harriman in this state except in your letters. Expect he is in the southern mines.17
California had meant little gold for many of the forty- niners, some of whom never returned. Others brought back mod- est gains, including the North Waldoboro men and Alex Wiley in the Slaigo district. Gardner K. returned, but it was to have his remains laid in the family lot in the Main Street Cemetery.
Death is no respecter of social status and in these middle decades it made many inroads among the gentry as well as the more humble. One by one the great figures, who early in the new century had laid the foundations of the town's greatness, with- drew to the realm of shade. On April 18, 1840, William Sproul, the town's leading industrialist and realtor, was laid in the new family tomb which he had built in the Main Street Cemetery against the day. He was followed on August 21st by Payne Elwell, merchant, civic leader, and the first deacon of the Established Church. On August 3rd, one year later, Joshua Head died at the home of his daughter in Warren. As a merchant, land speculator, capitalist, and
16 Possibly Charles Currier.
17Waldoboro men in the California migration other than those mentioned were: Wm. Davis, Wm. Prince, Job K. West and Rob. Brown, who sailed from Boston on the Rob Roy, Jan. 29, 1850. (Eastern Argus [Portland] of this date and year.)
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Federalist candidate for Congress he had lived on through the years to see his incorrigible Toryism die, disappear, and be for- gotten.
In 1845 John Currier, gentleman and highly respected citizen, departed from the scene. On November 26th of the following year Captain Charles Miller died in his brick home on Jefferson Street. As merchant, shipbuilder, and legislator he had achieved wealth and died representing the topmark reached by the Miller family in the town. By his first marriage he was a brother-in-law of Colonel Reed, which assured him social standing and political preferment. Later after the death of his first wife and the post office episode, this relationship cooled, but for some reason, innate clannishness perhaps, Jane Ann and her mother were with him much in his last days.
On January 26, 1847, the town's first citizen, Colonel Isaac G. Reed, breathed his last in his lovely Georgian mansion. His part in the development of the community had been great and varied. As a lawyer, financier, military leader, politician, legisla- tor, and town officer, he had touched the growing town vitally at every point and led in every field and phase of its growth. He was in reality the founder of its greatness. With him there came to the town the Harvard tradition and the beginnings of the genteel way of life. Surviving him were six children and three stepchildren. The Colonel's mantle fell to the shoulders of his son, Isaac, and his was one of the few great families of the town where the great qualities of the first generation showed no dimi- nution in a scion of the second.
A familiar figure in the town and a leader among the Ger- mans was George Demuth. Born back in 1771, and a cousin of Captain George Smouse, he had acted as his local agent in the latter's West Indies ventures and had accumulated a comfortable competence. With the advent of the Puritan leaders his influence had waned, but due to his Reed-Smouse connections he occupied a privileged social position up to the time of his death in these middle decades.
In 1852 Mary Barnard died. The name of Barnard is closely linked with that of Sproul in village history. After the death of her husband, Ezekiel, in 1816, Mary became the town's first busi- ness woman, managing a rather difficult estate and presiding genially for decades over the town's social center, the Barnard Tavern.
There was no more tragic village episode than the last years of the Reverend John W. Starman. Since 1812 he had presided courageously over a dying cause. One by one his supporters had died or deserted the old church and as the parish sank to neglect
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and poverty, its leader underwent the same fate. Beset by dis- appointment, defeat, and disease, his end came in 1854, when, al- though not a town charge, he was supported to a considerable de- gree by the generosity of the town's charitably minded citizens.
One year later death came to James Hovey, one of the town's most energetic and competent businessmen. His role in the town's great days was a large and respected one, and in his two decades in the community as merchant, shipbuilder, and ship- owner, he had accumulated and left an estate appraised at $81,- 597.31, a measure of the man's ability as well as of the town's prosperity in these times.
In 1857 Captain John Stahl, a second-generation German, went to his final rest in the little cemetery on Dutch Neck. He was an ardent Lutheran and one of the last supporters of Mr. Star- man. He had been one of the town's Committee of Security in the War of 1812. Thereafter a long period as a successful ship- master netted him ample means, and he bought up farms on Dutch Neck in the old German fashion for his four sons, and rounded out his career by building a fleet of vessels on the shore of the present Herbert Stahl farm on the Neck.
On March 19th of the same year Charles Heavener, a Revo- lutionary soldier, died at his home on the very tip end of Dutch Neck at the age of ninety-nine years. He was a second-generation German, was bilingual and had an excellent military record, hav- ing fought under the dashing Arnold at Saratoga, in the Rhode Island campaign, and at the battle of Monmouth. As was fitting he was laid in his last resting place in the Dutch Neck Cemetery, with military honors provided by the Conrad Guards.
Two years later, in 1859, still another of the second-genera- tion Germans, Charles Reiser (Razor), came to the end of his days. Born back in 1762 in the closing years of the French and Indian War, the son of an original settler, old "Major" John Mar- tin Reiser, Charles had enjoyed the prestige associated with an influential father, but had lived by disposing bit by bit of a siz- able and desirably located landed estate. His fortunes had waned steadily, and at the time of his death the Reiser holdings in the town had practically vanished.
On June 21, 1859, the town lost one of its most promising younger citizens, Albion P. Oakes. He had come to the town as a schoolteacher and within a short time had infused new life into the village educational system. In the meantime he was reading law and became associated with the law firm of the Honorable S. S. Marble. In 1853 he strengthened his position in the commu- nity by marrying Ella, a daughter of Joseph Clark. His influence and leadership increased steadily, and a large usefulness was ter- minated by his early death.
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The most momentous death of these years was that of Con- rad Heyer on February 19th, at the age of one hundred and seven. Mr. Heyer had long since ceased to be an individual; he had be- come a landmark and a monument commemorating the begin- nings of the town. His hardihood and longevity had become a myth throughout the state. He was born in a log cabin on the banks of the Medomak; he had endured the privations of cold and
JAMES HOVEY
hunger in the early days of the settlement; he had known the terrors of Indian raids; he had fought through the Revolution undergoing the sufferings of Valley Forge, and at the age of one hundred, read without glasses and rounded out the century mark by hand mowing all the morning in his field. He had participated as chorister in the first service held in the new Lutheran Church at Meetinghouse Cove; and in the last Lutheran service ever held
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in Waldoboro, he had at the age of ninety led the singing, taking the high notes of the hymn without a single tremor or quaver of voice.
He was a source of wonderment to his fellow townsmen, who regarded him as timeless. At last he died at his home on the North Waldoboro road, now the "Evie Teague place," and was buried in the little Heyer Cemetery on his farm. When spring came preparations were made by the town to honor its old patriarch. The old church was put in order; a lot was purchased in the Lutheran Cemetery and a monument was bought by public sub- scription. June 17th was the day set; the body of the old centenarian was exhumed and the remains were brought to Farrington's Corner where they were "viewed" in line with the old German custom. The Rockland and Bath bands were on hand, as well as the Rock- land City Guards. From far and near thousands of people flocked to the town, the largest human concourse ever to assemble in the village.
At one o'clock the procession was formed at Farrington's Corner. The Rockland band was in the van followed by the City Guards in bright uniforms with big bearskin hats, headed by the Marshal, Colonel Atherton W. Clark, on horseback. Then came the hearse draped in American flags; the Conrad Guards followed in black frocked coats faced with green and gold, grey trousers with green stripes, and army caps with green fountain plumes. At the grave a dirge was played and prayer offered by the Rev- erend Harvey M. Stone. Following a second dirge three volleys of musketry were fired over the grave by the Rockland Guards.
At the old church the forty-sixth Psalm was read by the Reverend Kalloch, and outside a large choir sang "Landing of the Pilgrims." Prayer was then offered, followed by a hymn in Ger- man sung by Christian Schweier and his two sisters. Doctor Fred- erick Robie, later Governor of Maine, presided and introduced the Reverend John Dodge who delivered "an eloquent eulogy." The choir sang again, prayer was offered by the Reverend Mr. Byrne of North Waldoboro, and the benediction was pronounced by the Reverend Enos Trask of Nobleboro. The program seemed to follow the pattern set by the early German funeral customs of the town, even to the collation provided at 5:00 P.M. by the Conrad Guards for the assisting companies from out of town and for a few invited guests. In the evening the Bath Band and the Conrad Guards were finely entertained by General Cochran at his home (Leroy Miller residence) on Main Street.
In 1848 the Maine Telegraph Company ran its lines through the town to Rockland, and a local office was set up in 1849 in the westerly store of the Clark Building with Thomas D. Currier
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as operator. Mr. Joseph Clark was one of the directors of the company, and during the last twenty years of its existence, before it was absorbed by the Western Union, more of its stock was owned in Waldoboro than in any place in the state outside of Bangor.
The war with Mexico passed, causing little excitement in the town. The only local man in the service was William H. Stahl who was a marine with the fleet at Vera Cruz.
The Iron Foundry on Main Street owned and operated by Rufus Rich was sold to C. C. Atwell and M. B. Harriman. These men erected a new foundry by the river near the Sproul mill and in 1855 sold it to Isaac Boyd and Samuel Vance. Three years later this partnership was dissolved, and Mr. Boyd continued the business alone until his death in 1868. He was succeeded by his son James P., who carried on until the foundry was destroyed by fire in 1893.
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