USA > Maine > Lincoln County > Waldoboro > History of old Broad Bay and Waldoboro, Volume 2 > Part 52
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Some day the letter s will be added to the last word of the legend, which will date the memorial in the present. The term "broken shaft" is of later date than the monolith itself and is of folk origin, a beautiful testimony to the poetic sense inherent in the folk consciousness. To the best of our belief the memorial was never formally dedicated, but from the beginning and through the years it has remained the focal point of Memorial Day exer- cises.
In 1926 the town took its first step toward consolidating its schools. In the March meeting of that year Alfred Storer, May- nard H. Kuhn, Annie Thompson, Sanford Winchenbach, Clifford Winchenbach, and Victor Burnheimer, Sr., were appointed as the committee to study the problem and report. From this time the town moved slowly toward the consummation of this goal, despite checks, frustrations, and the mulish antics of a remnant of the old district mind, so that by the year 1950 all education was concentrated in village schools with the exception of that of North Waldoboro, which was still taught as the first five grades of an old district school. In this, as in other ways in these years, the town kept inching ahead, the more easily now, since with the advent of the automobile and the hard surface road, it was fast becoming conscious of itself as a single social organism, and the back-district system of "checks and balances" had all but dis-
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appeared. This same year, 1926, the town voted $4,000 to install a system for supplying water to the Paragon Button Corporation. Before the coming of the automobile, a quarter of a century be- fore, such moves would have been drowned under a deluge of back-district opposition. It was similar in the case of the fire siren, approved in 1928 and implemented with a $500 appropriation, for with the telephone and motor fire trucks the back-country could share in this dispensation equally with their village friends.
As the slow current of life in the town drowsily meandered into the late 20's affairs were growing crazier in the big outside world. Values on the New York Stock Exchange were trending toward fabulous levels. Some of the good local folk found them- selves growing rich-on paper-when, with seemingly little warn- ing the bottom dropped out of the national economy, and over the country the paper tycoons started hurling themselves from twenty-story windows. There were no such lofty eminences in Waldoboro, but spot-wise all over the town the paper fortunes evaporated, and the recent and buoyant rich grew decidedly sad- der and greyer. Local philosophy in general stood up smilingly under this terrific impact, there being but one casualty, the cashier of the Medomak National Bank, who apparently elected to face death rather than an altered status.
With the first major sag in the stock market, millions who had accumulated large paper profits threw their securities on to the market in the hope of salvaging some portion of their illusive riches. Thus the market was glutted with securities. Demand for them was limited; the supply was seemingly unlimited. Stocks did not move at all except at absurdly depressed values. Thus the vicious cycle was started. The public husbanded its purchasing powers and limited them to bare and basic necessities. Demand for necessities was limited, and demand for unnecessaries dried down to a trickle. This threw millions out of work; industry operating at low levels could show only deficits; its bonds shrank in value, a condition which rendered the banks holding such securities insolvent. Unemployment ran into millions; men work- ing for bread were willing to work at any wage.
The effect of the collapse was not felt immediately in the slow and stable Waldoboro economy - except for those who sud- denly found themselves the owners of shrunken and worthless securities. The first general effect was felt in the prices of con- sumers' goods; the dollar began to buy more and more flour, sugar, tea, coffee, bread, and meat. This would have been fine, but wages shrank with prices, and by 1931 unskilled labor was offering its services for as little as a dollar a day. Carpenters were working for $4.00 and masons for $5.00 a day, that is, those who
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were fortunate enough to find any work at all. Local conditions were further aggravated by the fact that many of those born in the town who had found employment in larger centers, dis- lodged from their jobs, returned to the old town where living was cheap and where a home roof offered free shelter. This served further to glut the local labor market, creating a con- dition where the labor supply far exceeded the demand, and Waldoboro began to acquire a clear comprehension of what was taking place.
The year 1931 was the nightmare year. The market value of securities held by the banks had fallen so far below par, that there were few left in the land in a position to pay their deposi- tors "a hundred cents on the dollar." As soon as the public sensed that their banks were no longer solvent, panic set in and "runs" were started on banks in all sections of the country. In Waldo- boro rumors circulated in reference to the dubious solvency of the local bank, and depositors began to withdraw their funds. The run was on and panic spread. Cars would drive hastily into town, park, and the occupants would pour out and run for the bank. Men and women stood in long queues before the bank with shoe boxes under their arms or satchels in their grasps. There was fear in their hearts and unreasoning anger on their tongues.
The run lasted for several days, while inside the bank the tellers slowly counted out the withdrawals in one and two-dollar bills. By this means the run was delayed while the directors de- vised ways and means of riding the storm. The old Fidelity Trust Company of Portland, one of the larger stockholders, backed the bank by shipping in currency from its own vaults. When the run was at its height, Archibald Kaler waited patiently his turn in the line, and when he reached the teller's window, made a deposit, to the amazement of those waiting near him. There were also some citizens who ridiculed the panic-stricken mob and loyally and stubbornly refused to draw out a single penny of their de- posits. When the run came to a halt the bank was still open and doing business. In fact, some of the frenzied mob returned shame- facedly with their shoe boxes a few days later and redeposited their money, sheepishly apologetic over their stupidity.
The Medomak National Bank continued to do business until Franklin D. Roosevelt became President of the United States. One of the first acts of his administration was to close practically all banks in the nation for the purpose of a necessary reorganiza- tion. In the local institution those bonds (representing some 40 per cent of its deposits) which had depreciated markedly in market value were sequestrated and placed under the trusteeship of a committee made up of Frederick Hovey, Sherman Jameson,
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Stephen Jones, Alfred Storer, and Percy Storer. Thus when the bank reopened the depositors had access to 60 per cent of their deposits. In the meantime as the country righted itself, bonds began to appreciate in value, and as the sequestrated securities again reached the level at which the bank had purchased them they were sold. By this procedure plus the accumulated interest on these securities, every depositor had by 1934 been paid back one dollar for every dollar deposited. When this liquidation had been successfully completed and the last penny paid, the man- agement received one single letter of appreciation and commenda- tion from among its many depositors, for its fine work in fully reimbursing all depositors.
By 1932 the community was feeling the full weight of the depression, and it began to tighten its belt. In the March Town Meeting of this year there was every evidence of economy, and all superfluous services were denied appropriations. School nurs- ing, resurfacing Friendship Road, hard surfacing Dog Lane, ad- vertising natural attractions, and painting the interior of the town building were among the cases of postponed action. Other appro- priations were rigorously pruned, and the selectmen were for- bidden to overdraw any account except in the case of "wash- outs, conflagration and health." They were also instructed "to use all their influence to procure work for citizens of the town on the new Trunk Line." Wages paid on this project were $2.50 per man for a nine-hour day, $5.00 for a team, and $8.00 for trucks.
In 1932 default on payment of taxes had become general, and collectors' advertisements were issued for the sale of property of ninety-five resident owners. In the March meeting action on the disposition of tax deeds was postponed. This issue became a hot potato, and in most cases action was postponed through 1936. It was only a few years later that the boom preceding the Second World War got under way, providing work at high wages for everyone. It was then that the delinquent taxpayers were able again to secure titles to their property by paying back taxes and costs of advertising and carrying charges. Within a decade some, who a few years before had lost title to their own homes, were riding about in Lincoln and Cadillac cars. The town definitely had felt the loss of tax monies, and in 1933 the budget dropped to $33,170.00. Despite economy the debt was reduced annually through the depression by $1,000 per annum. The town would not, however, keep down its pauper account, and in a meeting of January 4, 1934, it was "voted to overdraw the poor account by $2,000." This same year $6,500 was appropriated for "the support of paupers." It was all like an evil dream, to be over in a few years when the town would be entering on the most pros- perous period in its history.
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The Great Depression left its marks on the life of the town, and these for the most part seemed of a beneficial character. The presence of want, distress, and danger proved a sort of shock treatment in a period of acute struggle for survival. Men and women emerged from it spiritually invigorated by the experience, more courageous, more resolute, more willing to gamble for a good future, more sensitive to the values inherent in group action, and more conscious of the real significance of team play. Some- thing had been born during these dark and evil years, a spirit, not a rebirth of the old spirit that had marshalled the town on to greatness in the period from 1790 to 1860, only to become en- feebled, blind, and helpless when the tide of the national economy set in against it, but a spirit acutely conscious of the ebb and flow of the economic tides, able to calculate the character of these forces making for and against a good destiny, and bent on shap- ing such forces in the creating of a stable and strong economy. In short, Waldoboro had ceased to be a tiny, independent micro- cosm, but had integrated itself into an understanding of one world and had become a part of this world - the great world. There was a new leadership of younger men in the community, who had gone through the lean years fighting, and who when they emerged scathed but triumphant into an era of "corn and wine," possessed the know-how of staying there. This group today is providing the town with a wise, experienced, and veteran gen- eralship, which in a considerable measure is responsible for the present economic renascence in the town's life.
There also emerged from these years a community more sensitive to progress, more bent on keeping pace with the big evolving world of which it had become a part. Time-honored practices had lost something of their hallowedness. The Australian ballot in the election of town officers came in 1935. The budget was moving upward under the pressure of enlightened under- standing. The rise in the costs of supporting the needy brought the question of a poor farm to the fore. There were repeated in- sertions in the warrant of articles authorizing such an institution, but it was not until 1940 that the voters were able to overcome their repugnance to this idea, and the farm on Flander's Corner in the northwestern section of the town was acquired and the paupers housed in it. This was never a popular idea with the poor, and it provided a very considerable incentive on their part to self- help and self-support. The advent of more prosperous times and the development of a state pension system, which was a far more humane solution, rapidly decimated the numbers of the needy. By 1943 the "poor account" had fallen to $2,000 and by 1945 dropped to $500, and in 1947 no monies were needed for the sup-
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port of paupers, and the dwindling patronage of the poor farm warranted the closing of this institution.
Through these years other institutions of a more positive and promising character were springing up in the town. In 1935 The Twin County Messenger, founded in 1932 and published by Thomas Holmes, was discontinued. In 1937 it resumed pub- lication under the editorship of George E. Bliss, Jr., only to falter feebly until January 1938, when its meager facilities were pur- chased by Maynard Genthner, and a slender start was made on what has developed into a fine undertaking. Mr. Genthner had little more than courage, vision, and determination, and his first years were a struggle. The light broke for him in 1941 when the advertising started to pay. In the beginning the paper was staffed by two men, Genthner and Paul Winchenbach, who printed 200 copies. The total circulation was 150 copies. The paper, its name changed to The Waldoboro Press, grew steadily. By 1948 its cir- culation had increased to 1800 - a modern printing business had grown up, equipped with modern machinery and employing a staff of eight persons. The paper has a concentrated circulation in the towns of Knox and Lincoln counties accounting for forty-five per cent of each issue. The town of Waldoboro absorbs forty per cent and the remaining issues reach all parts of the United States. The paper has been a consistent backer and promoter of community welfare and development. In tone it is bold, vigorous, and vital and in its short lifetime it has become an invaluable ad- junct to the renascence of local life.
Another enterprise - a lovely adjunct to the cultural life of the town, was the Waldo Theatre which became a reality in 1936. The town cooperated by granting a $50 flat rate tax for five years, and thereafter a flat rate tax of $100 for five years. The major part of this enterprise was directed and financed by Carroll T. Cooney, Sr. The architect was Ben Scholanger of New York City; Myron Neal was the master builder and Clyde Win- chenbach the master carpenter. The theater was built on the site of the old Isaac Reed Mansion, in the disassembling of which the town lost a century old landmark, but gained a fine amusement center and an attractive structure in true colonial style. The build- ing has a seating capacity of 447, is air-conditioned and fireproof. It was built in the depression years at a cost of $75,000. Today it is estimated that its replacement value would be near $250,000. It was opened on December 9, 1936, and its first film was "Pennies from Heaven." It operates under the management of John J. Cooney. Considered by the film business as one of the best small theaters in the United States, it is widely patronized by citizens of two counties.
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All the happenings in the community through these years did not reflect the new progressive spirit. There were atavistic inter- vals in the local consciousness. One such came in 1937, when an article was placed in the town warrant to restore and preserve the last of the community's relics, the old Town Pound, but lost out. In such matters Waldoboro has never exhibited much imagina- tion or a fitting interest. It destroyed its old powder house on Prock's Ledge, has failed to mark the site of the mass burial of those colonists who perished in the winter of 1753-1754, and has overlooked the site of the only Moravian Mission in the State of Maine. The old Lutheran Church is preserved by its custodian, the German Protestant Society. The Pound is the last of these ties of the town to its past. It is a structure of roughly laid stone- work, which in its massiveness is somewhat reminiscent of the great circle of monoliths of the Druids at Stonehenge. For decades it was virtually lost to mankind, tucked away as it was, invisible from the roadside, in its thick screen of baby brush. It is only in the present decade of the century that the jungle growth has been cleared away and this old relic been restored to the light of today as a quaint and fascinating monument to the past.
An attempt to preserve the old courthouse (in later years the town house), whose history is narrated in an earlier chapter, likewise proved fruitless. In the first March meeting of 1938 the voters justly refused to sell the structure, but in a second meeting at the end of the same month, it was voted "to sell the town house to Merton Winchenbach for $100." There then followed one of the blindest acts of ignorance that could be recorded in the his- tory of any community. For over 150 years this building had been the place where all business had been transacted by town officers, and all papers and records involved in these transactions had been stored in the top of the building. These documents dated back to 1773, and were the richest single source of the town's history since its incorporation in that year. No apparent effort was made to ascertain the value of this material or to preserve it. Vast in bulk and quantity - all documents were in longhand - it was trucked away and dumped off a wharf into the Medomak River. It was truly a case of the river swallowing down her own human past. Fragments, dimly legible, were later picked up and pre- served by a few enlightened souls on whose shores some of the material happened to be cast up and left by the tide.
On a brief Easter vacation trip to town from Pennsylvania, I learned what had happened, and getting help gathered together those few remaining documents that had been left scattered on the upper floor of the building. Such papers furnished a true index to the amplitude and wealth of the material which had been
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HISTORY OF OLD BROAD BAY AND WALDOBORO
destroyed. This act of blind stupidity, of course, was in no sense deliberate, but nevertheless it did blot out forever much of that which was most human and revealing in the earlier life of the town. The old building itself was moved to a near-by lot and put into use as a public garage. Its storied and varied past came to an end in 1948, when a spark from an electric welder accidentally reached a gasoline and grease soaked floor.
In late 1939 another old Waldoboro institution passed into history. The bank, founded in 1836 as the Medomak Bank, be- came a national bank in 1865, and terminated its own existence in 1939, at the end of more than a century. It closed solvent, its house in order, its responsibilities, financial and moral, liquidated, its capital stock at a premium, and the sale of its assets a profitable solution for the stockholders. After the preferred stock had been retired at par and all expenses paid which had been incurred in the dissolution and sale, there remained a total of $67,664.07 for distribution to the holders of the common stock, or $17.80 per share. This represented a twenty-five per cent appreciation in value to the holders of this stock. The bank reopened under the ownership and management of the Depositors Trust Company of Augusta, as one of its dozen or more branch banks in Maine.
The fifth decade of this century dawned under the dark cloud of a general European war. Otherwise the auspices were favorable and all signs augured the beginnings of the second great period in the town's long history. The census of 1940 left a warm glow of confidence and satisfaction. The town was growing. The long period in the decline of population beginning in the 1860's had come to a halt, and in 1940 the community registered its first gain in eighty years. The population rose from 2,311 in 1930 to 2,497 in 1940, the largest gain of any town in the county. In all other areas of community life gains were equally marked, and in the ten years following the town forged steadily forward, achieving the most diversified, productive, and durable economy in its history.
On a quiet Sunday morning in early September 1939, many Waldoboro people sat in their kitchens listening to an unbroken stream of broadcasting from faraway England. Little did they reckon that for many years at least the end had come to their quiet and happy destiny, and that they were being drawn into the area of one of the mightiest social convulsions in human his- tory, vast upheavals of human nature, as it were, which are still erupting with volcanic force, and still shaking the social struc- tures of the world to their very foundations. The old philosophy still held fast in America, but elsewhere in the world new ideologies - strange, subversive and destructive - were obsessing the minds of men. The dark tide of Fascism seemed to be blotting out human
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freedom everywhere in Europe, regimenting the bodies, minds, and souls of Western man, and inaugurating a new regime char- acterized by the systematic application of science to the task of changing the face of human society by torture, intimidation, in- doctrination, and the wholesale extermination of whole racial groups - the complete deracination of age-old and age-proven human values by methods unparalleled in human history for fiend- ish cruelty, devilish ingenuity, and sheer bestial barbarity.
Translated into concrete historical terms, Adolph Hitler on that Sunday morning was liquidating another "inferior race," the Poles, and France and England were uniting to check by war the forward movement of Fascism. The Red Menace, destined later to outdevil in all ways the Fascist fiends, was still a latent force, in reality unknown and hence unfeared. These forces and their later eventuations were to prove the decisive and dynamic fac- tors in Waldoboro history throughout this decade, and probably in a longer future yet to unfold.
The early successes of Fascist arms in Europe was noted with horror, and the realization became ever more and more clear that the democratic way of life would survive in the world only through the intervention of American power. President Roosevelt had clearly discerned this eventuality, and in a speech in Chicago, in 1937, had cannily pointed to what lay ahead. At this early date he had been designated by the myopic bourgeoisie as a war- monger, but his wisdom and foresight was made more than mani- fest by events themselves, and as the war developed, America under his brilliant leadership girded herself to become "the arsenal of Democracy" - a policy presaging an almost revolutionary change in Waldoboro life and economy.
The war pattern in the town followed rather closely that of the First World War, but on a far larger scale. There were rationing, conservation of food and fuel, Victory gardens, Red Cross work, the draft, bond drives, and the most telling factor - everybody went to work, night or day, at fabulous wages on a basis of time and overtime. The old Reed & Welt shipyard in the town was reopened. Private and government contracts were hur- riedly executed, and four and five craft were on the ways under construction simultaneously. Furthermore, yards opened in Booth- bay Harbor, Camden, and Rockland, and the Hyde Windlass and the Bath Ironworks literally mushroomed in growth. Every- body in the town had a job. Bath and the local yard employed large numbers of men, and there were many who travelled to the other centers for their day or night of work.
For a period of four or five years the Medomak River yielded up $3,000 per day in clams, and all other industries in the town operated at their peak. The town suddenly became
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wealthy. The working class became the moneyed class. The wid- est distribution of wealth in the town's history was under way, and this wealth was in the main wisely used. While there were those who occasionally on the Four Corners would ostentatiously light their cigarette from a five-dollar bill, for the most part this wealth went into savings banks, Government bonds, the liquida- tion of mortgages, or the purchase outright of homes and farms. The economy of the town was placed on a sound basis, and nearly everyone found himself in possession of a surplus of wealth. Hardship of course there was, since labor was not available for the normal needs of farm and home. Housewives who formerly had had the aid of maids did their own work. As a result of this absence of leisure, social life underwent a change. The old spirit of neighborliness disappeared because everybody was busy and there was no time for the usual social amenities. It was in this manner that a new pattern was set up in the social life of the town, which has carried over into times of peace. This, together with the advent of the automobile, which has greatly widened the mobility of man, seems to have brought to an end forever the old neighborhood as the main social unit in the life of the town.
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