USA > Maine > Lincoln County > Waldoboro > History of old Broad Bay and Waldoboro, Volume 2 > Part 51
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Maurice B. Eugley. Inducted at Wiscasset, April 1, 1918; Private, 22 Co., Bn. 151, Depot Brigade, to April 15, 1918; Co. H. 304 Infantry to July 31, 1918; Co. K., 163 Infantry to August 7, 1918; Co. A. 39 Infantry to Hq. Co., 304. Killed in action, September 26, 1918.
Charles C. Lilly. Inducted at Wiscasset, April 1, 1918; Private 1st Cl., 22 Co., 6 Trng. Bn. 151 Dep. Brigade to May 1, 1918; Co. K., 39 Infantry to July 19, 1918; Aisne-Marne defensive Sector. Killed in action, July 19, 1918.
Samuel Shuman. Inducted into service at Portland, Maine. Private in the 55th Field Artillery. Killed in action, September 26, 1918, in the Meuse- Argonne offensive. Remains brought back from France and interred in the Benner Cemetery on the North Waldoboro road.
When the local American Legion Post organized here in 1939, its establishment commemorated the name of one of these local boys who fell on a battlefield in France. Charles Castner Lilly was an exceptional human; exceptional in his mental and character endowment, exceptional by reason of his highly trained and educated faculties, and exceptional because during his entire young life his rare powers had been dedicated unselfishly to the promotion of human welfare without thought of financial reward or personal prestige. The conditions surrounding his death are recorded here by his lifelong friend as a monument to his superb distinction and as a permanent memorial to a life of such promise that made the final surrender so young. They are also justified historically because of the brief inside glimpse which they may
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furnish of life on a transport, of training at a military center in France, and of actual battle conditions in modern war. Twelve days after Charles C. Lilly fell in battle the chaplain of his unit in France sent the following letter to his family in Waldoboro:
Somewhere in France July 30, 1918
Mrs. Frank L. Boothby, R. F. D. No. 3, Waldoboro, Maine
My dear Mrs. Boothby:
One of my duties as Chaplain is to superintend the burial of our heroic dead. And yet even though painful, it is a privilege.
Heroes live forever. This war is necessarily appalling for its toll of human life. It cannot be otherwise. One can read upon the faces of these heroic French a story not written in books.
They have suffered, oh so patiently, and are still suffering. We Americans will also show our true American spirit.
Our first battle was one to be remembered. Nothing could stop our gallant troops. They charged the enemy, driving him before them.
This regiment was cited for conspicuous bravery in action, a cita- tion well deserved. Your brother was numbered among the gallant dead. He is honored by his officers, his comrades, and all who love the prin- ciples for which we are fighting. I hope you will not think of him as dead, but rather living in the hearts of all who knew him.
As Chaplain of this gallant regiment, I extend to you my sympathy, not as a matter of form, but from my heart. May the good God help you to bear your loss with patience. Remember as you think of him that he died in a cause that will eventually make the world safe for all liberty- loving peoples.
Very sincerely yours, James R. Shanks Chaplain, 1st Lt. 39 Inf. A. E. F.
Nearly one year later Mrs. Boothby received a letter from one of her brother's comrades in action, who gave her in some detail the story of Charles C. Lilly's last months and days as an American soldier. Sergeant Knudsen's letter follows here in full:
Company "K" 39th Infantry A.E.F. Sinzig, Germany June 12, 1919
Mrs. M. I. Boothby, Waldoboro, Maine
Dear Madam:
Your letter inquiring as to the circumstances attending the death of your beloved brother, Charles Castner Lilly, was received by the Com- pany Commander today, and as our present Company Commander was not with this company previous to the time of your brother's death he referred your letter to me. I consider it a privilege to give you all the information that I possess concerning your brother's death.
Although your brother was a member of this company for only a short time, we had all learned to love him, and he held a very dear place
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in our hearts. He joined this company only a few days previous to our departure from Camp Mills. We sailed for France, May 10, 1918 and were on the water for thirteen days arriving at France, May 23, 1918. During our trip across he spent his time doing everything possible to keep the boys in good spirits. He was a great asset to the company mor- ally, and evenings the boys would gather round hin while he would read and explain to them from the Scriptures, being a great lover of the Bible, and took a big personal interest in the moral welfare of the men.
After we landed at Brest, France, we proceeded to Benzingham, France, via Calais, arriving at Benzingham a little better than a week, during which time we went through some very intensive training, that we might be better fitted for the action we were so soon to see. During our training at Benzingham, Charles spent all his spare moments, which were very few at the time in teaching the men the French language. He always seemed to be the happiest when he could be doing some good for the boys, and was very much loved by every one.
We left Benzingham June 8th and hiked to Acy, France, arriving there on June 15th. We remained in the vicinities of Acy until July 15th, during which time we continued our intensive training. During all this time your brother continued his good work and was a big factor in keeping up the morale of the men. We left Acy July 15th, and hiked to the front lines.
July 18th we went over the top for the first time and it was a day I will never forget. We were attached to the French and were cited by them for the gallant part our Company and regiment played during that day and the few days that followed, and played our part by driving the Germans back and beginning the German retreat that did not stop until the armistice was signed.
During action your brother was a very cool and brave soldier, al- ways upholding the fighting qualities of the American soldier. He would have loved to live through this war, for it would have meant a great deal to him, as he said this to me while we were training with the French before we went into action the 18th day of July.
During the morning of the second day we were in action July 19th, your brother was shot through the brain by a machine gun or sniper's bullet and died instantly. At the time he was shot he was in a kneeling position and was cleaning or fixing his glasses. It happened so quickly and we did not think that we were in a dangerous place, as the front line was being held up by heavy machine gun fire. He was one of the first men from this company to make the supreme sacrifice. His death was mourned by all, as he was much loved by all the officers and men.
After July 19th we kept advancing for another day until we were relieved by the French, the morning of the 21st. We suffered heavy cas- ualties during this action and encountered as heavy fighting as we saw at any time in the battles that took place later. This battle is called the Aisne-Marne Offensive and is also referred to as the Second Battle of the Marne. During this battle we reached all of our objectives and suc- ceeded in capturing several towns. At the time your brother was killed we were situated in an open field a short distance from Chouy, France. He was buried by Chaplain James R. Shanks of the 39th Infantry in a field one eighth of a mile north of Chouy, France, and one hundred yards from the main road.
Personally I do not know of any one who was wounded and re- turned to the States that lives in your vicinity, and that was acquainted with your brother and went into action on July 18th. However, I have
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no doubt that there might be such a person that does not live a great distance from you, as so many of our men were sent to the hospitals and never returned to the Company. At present there are only about seventy of the old men left in the company out of the two hundred and fifty men who arrived in France with us. Our Company has seen many hard days of fighting, first on the Aisne-Marne, then the "Vesle," "St. Mihiel," and the "Meuse-Argonne Offensive." At the present we are sta- tioned in Germany doing guard duty and fatigue work, and look for- ward to an early return to the States, that is, if peace is signed.
Hoping this letter will give you all the information that you desire and wishing to extend my sincere sympathy to you for the loss of your brother and whom I love to remember as a very dear acquaintance, I am Sincerely, (Signed) Sgt. Ole Knudsen
No list of the Waldoboro men of World War I has ever been compiled. This is by no means a simple task. The records of the Adjutant General's office in Augusta are complete, but only for those men who were inducted into service in this state, while actually men who were born and grew up in the town entered service from many states. The records of these men could be secured were their names and places of induction known. Without such data the search is as vain as seeking a needle in a haystack. In compiling the list all known sources and individuals have been consulted. The aim of the local roster has been to include all those known who were inducted from this town, and all veterans in- ducted elsewhere who since the war have become permanent resi- dents in the town. With these objectives in view the roster has been completed and is attached as an appendix at the end of this volume.
World War I ended with the signing of an armistice by the Western and Central Powers on November 18, 1918. The news reached Waldoboro around two o'clock in the morning. By break- fast time the word had spread throughout the town, and Waldo- boro joined all the other little towns and big cities in a nation- wide jubilee. The strain had suddenly ceased; the shadow of death was lifted from over many firesides; the entire country relaxed. In Waldoboro church bells rang throughout the day; a big ship's bell was brought from one of the shipyards and set up on the corner outside Gay's Store. Everybody who passed took a hand in keeping it clanging intermittently throughout the day.
When night came, homes throughout the town were il- luminated, and while the lights blazed from doors and windows, there was a spontaneous demonstration in the streets. Long lines formed, fell into parade formation, and coursed through the streets headed by Dr. G. H. Coombs. His appearance at all points was the signal for applause and cheers, for he was generally and grate- fully acknowledged as the field marshal of World War I on the
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home front. America had entered this great struggle as a crusade "to make the world safe for Democracy." It ended in a firm con- viction that the trials of mankind were over. In the retrospect of lapsing decades has come the sad realization of how illusional was this hope. The epitaph of the struggle might well have been written in the bitter words of the prophet, Micah: "Thou shalt sow, but thou shalt not reap; thou shalt tread the olives, but thou shalt not anoint thee with their oil."
All was not war in the war years in the town. Out of the ceaseless activity and ferment of this period a large surplus of energy was generated which, among other things, was successfully channelled into a Public Library Association. To this end there had been sporadic attempts during the preceding century, and for brief periods loan libraries, circulating libraries, and reading clubs had sprung up, had their day, and withered at the root. The library which came into being during the war years has endured. It is noteworthy in this once conservative town that every forward step in its cultural life has come to pass through the interest, energy, and vision of one, or of a small group of individuals. The present library was no exception. The main driv- ing power was furnished by Ernest A. Glidden, ably seconded by Dr. George H. Coombs. The plan apparently was first pro- posed and discussed at a banquet held in the Oddfellows Hall late in 1916 or early in 1917. The Association actually came into being at a library luncheon held in the vestry of the Baptist Church on February 17, 1917. The first officers were: president, George H. Coombs; vice president, Ernest A. Glidden; treasurer, John M. Richards; secretary, Hadley H. Kuhn; trustees: Gertrude Coombs, Mrs. E. A. Glidden, E. A. Glidden, Hadley H. Kuhn, Alfred Storer, Charles W. Wallace and George H. Coombs. A fund of $430 was raised, and steps taken to secure incorporation.
From its beginning the library was located in its present room and the first librarians were volunteers. Of these individuals serving without pay, Mrs. Lucy Bliss was notable in her generous contribution of time. In February 1919 the library had gained sufficient public support to secure a paid librarian, and Anne Gay served for $170 per annum. In 1920 the circulation of books was 3,735, which had risen to 5,629 in 1926, the end of Anne Gay's period of service. She was followed by Ella L. White as librarian and Sarah Lash as substitute librarian. In recent years the library has been the beneficiary of public-spirited people, not only in gifts of books but bequests in wills. Such latter donations have come from the Charles C. Lilly Memorial Fund, and from Charles E. Ewell, James S. Walter, Lena Heron, Edna Young, and Eliza- beth Poor. In 1928 the library's present home, the Willett Block,
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was purchased by the Association, and in 1930 Sarah Lash became librarian and in her long service has successfully built up a wide reading public. At the present time the annual circulation aver- ages around 11,000 volumes with a maximum of 13,000, and the library stands at the peak of its interest, popularity, and public support.
In these early decades of the twentieth century Waldoboro was certainly not yet on the move economically, but in other, smaller ways it was taking up its cultural lag and following the trails blazed in the larger world in modernizing and adjusting itself to new practices and procedures. It is invariably true of our history that there has been little in our collective life that has been accepted when first proposed. We were slow in coming to a hard surface road in the village, and once that step was taken, we could not quite accept the necessity of keeping that surface clean. In the March meeting of 1915 a $200 appropriation for a clean village street was laid on the table. A year later Dr. George H. Coombs and twenty-five like-minded citizens, moved by health considera- tions, succeeded in getting an appropriation of $150 for this pur- pose.
Once a practice has been accepted and initiated the issue is usually settled, for it then becomes a part of our sanctified past. In 1916 Ernest Glidden and others were able to secure a modest appropriation of $100 for the library, and this too became an accepted part of our annual fiscal procedure. In 1917 the services of a medical officer in local schools with a compensation of $50 was rejected, but come it did ultimately and unquestioned it has remained. In 1919 the present town seal, prepared by the select- men, was approved, but this was not the case two years earlier with the constitutional amendment providing for woman suffrage. This was too radical a morsel for local conservative taste, and it was rather emphatically rejected by a vote of better than three to one, the exact vote being forty-six in favor and one hundred and forty-three opposed. On the day when the polls in the state were first opened to women, Maude Clarke Gay took her stand at the ballot booth before the arrival of any other voters, male or female, and became the first woman to vote in this town's long history.
At the close of this second decade the town's waning econ- omy received another shock. In 1909 Isaac Gardner Reed had opened a shirt factory in the quarters now occupied by the store of William Brooks. Here at one time there were fifty hands em- ployed in the manufacture of work shirts of blue chambray, of black and tan drill, and printed percale. In 1920 this little enter- prise was closed, another small business sacrificed to the machine
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HISTORY OF OLD BROAD BAY AND WALDOBORO
and mass production of the great centers of population. The man of thoughtful foresight living in the 20's must have often wondered whether the small town economically was not a withered twig on the great branching growth of American free enterprise, and whether the future might not be a slow, lingering, economic death.
It has been repeatedly stressed that in the 1870's, when Isaac Reed through age became indifferent to politics, the political face of the town started on a slow change. When Reed ceased to exercise his potent magic, machine cohesion weakened. Death slowly laid low his lieutenants and their faithful following. Only the binding force of a once powerful tradition remained. This had been so strong that its waning power continued on for half a century. The Republican vote did not increase as markedly as the Democratic vote slowly decreased. Through the first decades of the twentieth century the Democrats led with a regularly con- sistent margin of 150 votes, the vote fluctuating in both parties according to the popularity of the candidates. The closest approach made by the Republicans in a state election to the Democratic majority was in 1918, when it fell short by a margin of ninety- seven votes. In 1904, due to the great popularity of Theodore Roosevelt, he had received fourteen less votes than his Democratic opponent. In 1908 William H. Taft was only ninety-two votes behind William Jennings Bryan; in 1912, in the three-cornered race, Taft polled sixty-eight votes; Roosevelt, 147; and Woodrow Wilson, 358.
The first Republican sweep in the town in both a state and national election came in 1920. War weariness, the desire for change, disapproval of Woodrow Wilson's League of Nations, and the petty grievances and grudges accumulated against the Gov- ernment during the war years led to the inevitable upset. In the September election the Republicans polled 501 votes to 376 for the Democrats. In November the town gave 425 votes to one of the weakest of American Presidents, and 229 to his Democratic opponents, James M. Cox and Franklin D. Roosevelt. This result was in line with a pattern of voting that was common to this elec- tion throughout the nation. This vote should not be construed to mean that the town thereafter was Republican, but it did mean that an ancient tradition, after many years of weakening, had at last been broken, and that Republican power was waxing as that of the Democrats waned. It was not until the 1930's that it seemed to have reached a definitive ascendancy in the political life of the town.
XLIX
THE DECADES OF REBIRTH
To prepare the Society of tomorrow we must first grasp the reality of today.
ALEXIS CARREL
TH HERE ARE CERTAIN GAINS that undeniably accrue from having history written by those who are contemporary with its unfold- ing events, and who move with it on the tide of its blind inexor- ableness. Whither that tide trends no man knows, and he embarks on a hazardous enterprise, indeed, who presumes to foretell those "grains" which will bear either good or evil fruit in an unfore- seeable future. There are some things, however, that the historian dealing with contemporary life can do, which can be done by no one at a later date. He can endow events with a wealth of accurate detail, evaluate the background from which they evolve, and truly picture the clash and struggle of forces which either block their birth or bring them into being. Hence it is probably the part of wisdom that the life of his own time should be cast by the historian in the form of annals, along with an analysis of those forces which give shape to events through their origins. This and little more will be undertaken in this chapter which involves a coverage of Waldoboro history in the third, fourth, and fifth decades of the present century.
The creeping anemia which had afflicted the economy of the town from the decline in the building of wooden ships reached its deepest point of acuteness in the 20's of the present century. This fact was reflected in all respects of community life. At the end of the decade in 1930 the population had reached its lowest ebb in the long decline that had set in after 1860. In this census it numbered 2,311 and the drop of 115 since 1920 showed that the town did not possess sufficient economic vitality to meet the needs of its own birth rate. In seventy years it had lost approximately one half of its peak population reached in 1860. Its standard of life was one of plain comfort, but not of prosperity. The town's one major industry was a button factory. This was supplemented by
-
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HISTORY OF OLD BROAD BAY AND WALDOBORO
a number of small industries, each employing a few hands. The fisheries were undeveloped, the blueberry and poultry industries were operating only on a limited scale, and the remaining income came from some diversified farming, and from a goodly number of fortunate families who were living wholly or in part on the income derived from invested capital.
All in all, it was a quiet, serene, but unprogressive life. There was little real poverty, and such as there was, was met by appro- priations for the support of the poor, averaging $2,200 through this decade. The town supported its needs and followed a program of limited physical improvements on a budget of less than $40,000 - a sharp contrast with a budget of $100,000 twenty years later. There was progress, not the progress of a money-lush community, but the slower progress of a town developing within the area of its limited fiscal resources.
Through the slow years of this decade the fast-changing outside world was providing the pattern for improving the physical life of man. The community was alert to these changes, and one by one incorporated them into its own standard of living. It consistently increased its support of education; as early as 1922 it began to play with the idea of a new high school building; in 1921 it sought to purchase "the Moose Lot" for a new municipal building, a move which lost out, but the idea lived on, and in 1925 it agreed that "all monies that may accumulate in the Overlay Account and from the State Bank Tax be added to an account to be designated as a fund to build a suitable Town Hall." By 1931 the new high school idea had developed to the point where the voters generously agreed "to appropriate the entire Town Hall Account and transfer the same to a new school building fund." It was also in this decade that hydrants, and to a limited extent the lighting of streets, became fixed adjuncts of community life. In 1924 the town was ready to insure preservation of its records, and to this end the sum of $200 was appropriated. Twelve years later the idea had reached its full maturity in a sizable fireproof vault in the new high school building, and the town voted an additional $500 for the construction of this vault.
It was clear that the community was becoming more con- scious of the values inherent in its past and of the responsibilities in its present. A point reflecting this changing attitude is the "Broken Shaft," a monument to its war dead in the lovely little memorial park on the west bank of the river. This idea originated with an alert and loyal Waldoboro-Boston Club back in the early 20's, and on its solicitation the town in 1925 voted "to raise $1,000 to supplement the fund of the Club for a suitable memorial to the Soldiers and Sailors of our wars." With this money the present
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park lot was purchased - an area extending from Medomak Ter- race Road on the west to the river on the east. The slowly progressing plan was checked by the Great Depression of 1929, when the fund raised by the Waldoboro folk in Boston was tied up in the failure of a Boston Trust Company. This fund emerged from liquidation around 1939, reduced to a little more than $800, which was supplemented by a balance of $200 from the town account in the hands of the local Memorial Committee, sparked by the combined energies of Dr. G. H. Coombs and Charles Rowe. In 1940 work which had originally started on the land- scaping phase was resumed and completed. The shaft memorializ- ing the Waldoboro men of all wars was brought from Clark's Island. Mr. Rowe handled the details in Waldoboro, and Dudley Hovey effected such arrangements as could only be handled in Boston. The legend on the bronze plaque on the face of the broken shaft was written by me, and it reads:
This place is dedicated to the honored memory of those men of Old Broad Bay and Waldoboro, who served home and country in the War of the Austrian Succession, the French and Indian War, the American Revolution, the Second War with Great Britain, the Mexican War, the War between the States, the War with Spain and the World War.
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