USA > Maine > Lincoln County > Waldoboro > History of old Broad Bay and Waldoboro, Volume 2 > Part 6
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"I ought to," he said, "for I wrote that sermon twenty years ago." ''25
That his work would be continued was one of the fondest hopes of Mr. Starman in his last years. Writing to William D.
23 A Methodist circuit rider.
24Mr. Bulfinch himself.
25The Lutheran Observer, Phila., Apr. 12, 1889.
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HISTORY OF OLD BROAD BAY AND WALDOBORO
Williamson, he said: "I hope soon the Lord will call me to his rest and supply my place, not only by one who is younger, but by one who knows more than I do - who is wiser, holier, and more faithful."26
The Lutheran old guard entertained the same hope, and after Mr. Starman had been incapacitated by age, weakness, and disease, the remaining handful appealed to the New York Synod to send them another preacher. The Reverend Dr. Pohlmann of Al- bany was sent to Waldoboro by the Synod to survey the situation and arrange if possible for a continuation of the work. Dr. Pohl- mann has left a detailed account of his visit which for sheer pathos is unsurpassed in our documentary history. It was in October 1850 that the Rev. Pohlmann reached Waldoboro and went directly to Mr. Starman's home. He writes:
I found him a perfect wreck of his former self, afflicted with ery- sipelas, almost blind and nearly helpless; yet, the same simple-hearted, prayerful, God-fearing, and God-loving man as ever. Never shall I forget the gleam of joy which illumined his aged countenance, as I alighted from the stage coach and entered his humble dwelling. His troubles now seemed to be over, the desire of his heart to be gratified. His people were once more to be gathered in the old church, and to hear the Gospel from the lips of a Lutheran minister. Immediate arrange- ments were made for religious services on every day of the limited pe- riod of my visit. On Friday evening I preached in a neighboring school house; and such an audience of aged men and women, my eyes had never before beheld. At the close of the services, which were listened to with rapt attention, they clustered around me, and had I been the President of the United States, I could not have received a more hearty greeting, while they hailed with joy the proposition I made in behalf of the Min- isterium, that we would send them a minister, provided they would aid in his support by the contribution of $150.00 annually. On the following afternoon I addressed the congregation again at the house of Conrad Heyer, the first born among the settlers at Broad Bay, who, although one hundred and one years old, was as brisk and active as a man of fifty; and who according to his wont for more than eighty years, acted as chorister, and led us in a hymn of praise, reading without spectacles the small print of Watt's duodecimo Hymn Book, and singing even the highest notes with scarcely any of the tremulousness of age. But Sunday was the great day of the feast; for all the settlers far and near, to the third and fourth generations, crowded to the dilapitated church, on foot, and in all kinds of ancient vehicles. The aged pastor was there wrapped in flannels, having been carefully conveyed thither by one of his attentive deacons - the little remnant of his flock was there, ancient men and women, not a few having for the most part passed three score years and ten, fondly recalling the days of their youth, when they kept holy day together, and had gone to the house of God in company. After two services in the old church, and a third in the Baptist meet- ing-house in the village, the congregation was dismissed to meet on Mon- day afternoon to listen to another sermon and to learn the result of the
26Wm. D. Williamson in The American Quarterly Register, XIII, 162.
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The German Protestant Society
effort which was being made to comply with my proposition, and se- cure the services of a minister. At that meeting it was announced that the committee appointed for that purpose, after the most strenuous efforts, had been able to secure only between fifty and sixty dollars; and the amount of a collection taken on the spot, for my expenses, which they insisted on defraying, was only one dollar and thirty-one cents. It was not that they did not desire the services of a Gospel min- ister. It was not because they were penurious; for I doubt not that each one subscribed to the full extent of his ability. But it was because for the most part they were almost entirely destitute of the means of a comfortable living, and had absolutely nothing to spare from their scanty earnings.
Under these circumstances, as the feeble few were unable to supply even the necessary clothing for a pastor, and as there was no material in the settlement which might be counted on for the resuscitation and growth of the congregation, they came to the unanimous conclusion to disband their organization, and seek a spiritual house in the neighbor- ing Congregational Church, where since the disability of their pastor they had been fed, and in whose communion many of their children already numbered. Though with great reluctance I could not but ac- quiesce in their decision; and commending them to God and to the word of his Grace, the parting prayers was offered, the farewell hymn sung, and we separated, to meet no more, until assembled:
Where congregations ne'er break up, And Sabbaths ne'er shall end.27
The old pastor died in 1854 with the realization that he had outlived the cause which was his life's work. With his passing there passed the last main symbol of an order which had valiantly but vainly sought to perpetuate itself amid the insistent changes of an alien world. On June 16, 1855, the Society voted "to give $25.00 for erecting a monument for Mr. Ritz and Starman." The major part of the sum of $200 was contributed by the citizens of the town.
Hereafter the meetings of the Society were few and dealt largely with questions affecting the cemetery. The Trustees on June 22, 1850, appointed Edward Kaler the first sexton "to serve for what he gets from those he burys." At a meeting of the Trus- tees "holden" at the town house, Nov. 1, 1851, it was voted "to choose a committee to see Edward Kaler and see if it could buy an acre or half acre adjoining the burying ground. Thus it was that the Society was buying back the same land which it had sold as the school lot less than half a century before, for the old Germans and their descendants continued even in death their in- exorable claim to rest beside their fathers.
On May 24, 1856, it was voted that the Committee of the Burying Ground be authorized to find a suitable place to bury one of the last of the old Germans, Conrad Heyer, "in the German
27Rev. Henry L. Pohlmann, D.D., The German Colony and the Lutheran Church in Maine (Gettysburg, 1869).
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HISTORY OF OLD BROAD BAY AND WALDOBORO
Burying Ground," and furthermore "to see if it be necessary to make any repairs to the Meeting House for the purpose of burying Mr. Heyer and do the same." Conrad Heyer's life had been co- extensive with more than a century of Waldoboro history. Born amid the hard rigors of the early days at Broad Bay, he had for one hundred and seven years lived on to see his race assimi- lated, his native language die, and his church disappear. Amid changing scenes the old faith received its final vindication through him, and when the Patriarch of Waldoboro laid down the burden of his long years there was not one in all the land who did not rise up to do him honor. With the death of Mr. Starman Lutheranism in Waldoboro passed into history; with the death of Mr. Heyer it may be said that the last symbol of a once dominant culture vanished.
The Lutheran Church has maintained itself in American life down to the present as a vital religious element, and because of this fact it is reasonable to raise the question why this was not the case in Waldoboro. The answer is to be found in a variety of conditions. Perhaps the most potent factor was the isolation of these early Lutherans. At best they were a small group surrounded by a great alien culture - the English. So long as their isolation continued they maintained their original linguistic and religious characteristics. Following the French and Indian War the Puritans rolled in to their very door stones, buying up farms and settling down in their midst. These Puritans were better educated, had more money, more necessities and luxuries, and on the whole represented a higher standard of living. The Germans traditionally have always been quick to abandon their own culture and adopt alien culture patterns. Here at Broad Bay they were confronted by superior modes of living. In all its aspects the Puritan pattern was appealing to these Germans. Thus it was that the old alle- giance and loyalties weakened. One after another they made the new patterns their own. Their faith was the last value to be abandoned. In the end they relinquished this, too, and joined the churches of the more fashionable and more monied English.
Cultural imitation, however, was only one factor. The sec- ond compelling reason was language. The old Germans clung too obstinately to their native tongue and too insistently to a church service in the German language. When the first permanent English settlers came to the valley of the Medomak there was only one church they could attend -the Lutheran. Many attended and some joined even when they could understand little of the service. As their numbers grew they asked for part-time services in their own language. Had this request been acceded to after the Revo- lution, the church could have held their loyalty. In its creed it
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The German Protestant Society
was little different from the Episcopal and Congregational churches, and it could have easily met the religious needs of the whole community. Had the services at this time been half in English and half in German, the transition to a full English service in the fullness of time would have been natural and inevitable.
As has been pointed out the inflexibility of the old Germans and their pastors thwarted such a development. Gradually the English speaking element - both Puritan and German - withdrew, and as their strength and numbers increased, they established churches of their own, which slowly drew away from the old church the younger and English-speaking Germans. As death thinned the ranks of the uncompromising faithful, the Lutheran church found itself a parish without a membership sufficient in wealth and numbers to support it. Thus died the faith of the founding fathers. The determination which showed itself triumph- ant over the rugged boulders and "stubborn glebe" of their farms proved the death of their religion.
Today the German Protestant Society still carries on with a degree of financial strength and of business efficiency unknown in the annals of the early period. Its present purpose is the ad- ministration of cemetery matters, and the preservation of the church edifice as an historical memorial. Once a year it opens its doors for services, and the sixth, seventh, and eighth generations assemble from far and near to do honor to their heroic forebears. For a number of years the pulpit was supplied at these services by Dr. Samuel Trexler of the church's original synod, that of New York, and the head of the Lutheran church in the United States. At this annual service Dr. Trexler by rare dignity, grace, and eloquence reinterpreted to the descendants of the old Luther- ans, the courage, simplicity and piety of their ancestors. In his lifetime he had a deep interest in the history of the old settlement and of its church, and under his inspiration a worthy tradition was made to live again in the hearts of the later children of these rugged Teuton pioneers.
XXVIII THE MAKING OF THE VILLAGE
The village community has been central in human affairs since plants and animals were domesticated and men's relations to nature were transformed from conquest to alliance.
BAKER BROWNELL
T. HE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY HAD BEEN a period in which economic, social, and religious life in old Broad Bay and Waldoborough bore the unmistakable stamp of a feudal German pattern. By the beginning of the nineteenth century the English were increasing rapidly in numbers and influence; new figures and new personali- ties, some of them educated and resourceful, were settling in the town, taking over the direction and management of its affairs, and imparting to its life the character of a virile and enterprising New England community.
The census of the year 1800, apart from its furnishing a considerable body of interesting data, reveals, as do subsequent censuses, the steady drift from the German feudal pattern to that of a Puritan civilization. This enumeration shows a body of three hundred and seventy-six native English in residence in the town, a number not including families where the father was German and the mother English. In most of such households the English language was unquestionably the prevailing medium of speech, since the Germans entering into such unions were themselves in good part anglicized. In fact, this was a condition true at this time in reference to all the prosperous and influential Germans. The economic world in which they lived was English, and to do busi- ness in it and to share in its prosperity involved a fair mastery of English speech. Consequently the wealthier and more influential Germans, such as George Demuth, Captain George D. Smouse, Jacob Ludwig, the Ulmers, Charles Reiser, George Werner, John Kinsell, and many others in this generation had become bilingual. But in the homes of the back-country, in fact everywhere where agriculture and not trade was the source of livelihood, German remained the prevailing language.
45
The Making of the Village
The census of 1800 was taken by Samuel Davis, appointed for this purpose as a deputy to the United States Marshal of the District of Maine. It sought little data other than the actual count- ing of members making up individual households and their divi- sion into age groups, perhaps in order that the young nation might have some index to its military strength. The enumeration was made under the two headings of Free White Males and Free White Females. These two classifications with their age divisions follow:1
FREE WHITE MALES
Under ten years of age 274
Of ten and under sixteen years of age 139
Of sixteen and under twenty-six years 115
Of twenty-six and under forty-five years 135
Of forty-five years and upwards
99
FREE WHITE FEMALES
Under ten years of age 269
Of ten and under sixteen years 135
Of sixteen and under twenty-six years 118
Of twenty-six and under forty-five years 136
Of forty-five years and upwards 91
A further examination of the schedules shows five individuals listed otherwise than free. These included two negroes bearing the impressive name of Port-Royal, who lived in the economic orbit of Squire Thomas; a negro, sex unknown, living in the household of Captain Charles Samson, and a negro man and woman in the household of Captain Stephen Andrews. There were also addi- tional negroes in the town who, for rather obvious reasons, escaped the census. Since slavery was no longer legal in the District of Maine it is theoretically difficult to determine the status of these colored adjuncts, who were originally slaves brought to these parts from the West Indies by sea captains; but mindful of the traditionally serene indifference in Waldoborough to the statutes of the General Court, it is an entirely warrantable assumption that these negroes lived here in these homes in a serving capacity in return for food, clothing, and shelter.
This census also furnishes interesting data on the size of Waldoborough families. Of the two hundred and forty-five family units in the town, there were nine with eleven members and twelve with ten members. These twenty-one households made up about one seventh of the population of the town. The largest family among the Germans was that of Charles Kaler with a count of thirteen noses, and among the Puritans the households of Caleb Howard and Squire Thomas numbered eleven each. It is also of interest to note that the families that have been the most
1Schedules on file in the Bureau of the Census, Washington, D. C.
46
HISTORY OF OLD BROAD BAY AND WALDOBORO
numerous in these later years ran for the most part true to form in an earlier day. In 1800 there were in the town twenty-two Achorns, forty-six Benners, fourteen Castners, fifty Creamers, twelve Eugleys, twenty-three Feylers, eight Grosses, nineteen Heaveners, forty Hoffses, fifty-one Kalers, thirty Ludwigs, thirty- six Millers, forty-two Minks, twenty-one Storers, and thirty-eight Walks. Of the Puritans there were in the town nineteen Coles, twenty Farnsworths, twenty Howards, and thirty-three Sim- monses.
At the turn of the century then, if family names be a cri- terion, the town had become about one-quarter English, but the fact should not be lost sight of that culturally the Puritan in- fluence was out of all proportion to its numbers, and that in later censuses, as the Germans became more completely anglicized and intermarriage in consequence increased, names were no longer a true index of culture. In fact, it was in a large measure due to this fusion of blood that the two cultures ultimately merged. The Germans learned to live like the English and the latter in their turn absorbed some of the more fixed and enduring Teutonic traits, so that to this day those who are sensitive to the subtleties of racial and cultural characteristics and modes of feeling and thinking, can still discern in the present Waldoboro folk an underlay of German culture beneath the overlay of New England Puritanism.
Through the eighteenth century Waldoborough had re- mained a settlement of German peasants who according to their Old World mode of life lived on farms scattered throughout the township. In their former environment these peasants had never been village makers. They were a part of the land in the same sense as the present-day Polish or Russian peasants. The soil was their element and they were of it, just as their blood brethren in contemporary Pennsylvania. The Bauernhof, a group of buildings providing all essential services for their basic needs, fulfilled all requirements of their mode of life. In the fullness of time a more concentrated and contiguously settled area would probably have developed, but it didn't. They lived by agriculture, whereas their Yankee fellow citizens were more traders by nature. It was the Puritans who accepted the implications of this tradition, and the making of Waldoborough Village was almost entirely the work of their hands and minds.
The growth of the present-day village began in the 1790's and by 1810 it was securely established as the nucleus of the pres- ent township. The thought of such a development gave little concern to the Germans, but to some of the Puritans who were more inclined to land speculation it was a matter of considerable
47
The Making of the Village
importance. From the advent of Squire Thomas on the Medomak around 1770, and through the war and postwar period, the district at the foot of Thomas' Hill and Slaigo brook became a center of considerable activity, competing for importance with the head-of- tide area. Here were located Squire Thomas, the Samsons, and Andrew Schenk, all men of means, of enterprise, and influence. Here arose a center providing all the services needed in the early period. Here was the sawmill and the gristmill of Squire Thomas, to which people in the southern and southeastern part of the town brought their lumber for sawing, and their corn, rye, and wheat for grinding. Just across the brook on the west side was the tan- nery of Andrew Schenk where hides could be prepared for their manifold uses in the local economy. Here also were the wharves, warehouses, and the store of Squire Thomas, buying the export- able surplus of the settlement for the Boston, West Indian, and European trade, and providing the settlers with their needed goods drawn from these sources.
The business of Squire Thomas was extensive in these times, dwarfing that in any other part of the township, and so long as the main travel was by water this Slaigo mart was even more accessible to the lower westsiders than the head-of-tide district. Here also was the first customhouse2 for the district of Waldo- borough, of which Squire Thomas was the Collector, a magnet drawing shipbuilders and businessmen from all parts of the dis- trict which, on the east, reached to the Penobscot. Close at hand was Waterman's Ferry service providing transit of the bay and river for all travellers passing to the eastward and westward over the lower route. In short, it may be said that at this time there were in the town the nuclei of an upper and a lower village.
These were all substantial advantages in the development of the Slaigo site, but there were drawbacks, some natural and some artificial, which the hopes and dreams of the lower eastsiders could not overcome. Their site was not so central; the volume of water in the brook made grinding and sawing a seasonal business, whereas the dams on the upper Medomak provided water power the year around; again, there was no natural channel leading to Squire Thomas' wharves. In fact, at low tide there was no salt water at all, and only boats of the shallowest draft could lay alongside the wharves at high tide. In handling trade all commodi- ties had to be loaded on scows and lightered to the larger vessels at their anchorage in the bay, and lumber had to be floated out in rafts and loaded alongside from the water. In the case of ships dis- charging, cargoes had to be handled the same way.
2A frame wooden building on the east side of Slaigo creek. It was moved in later years to East Waldoborough by Mr. Wade and made by him into a home. Oral narrative of Mr. Sheldon Simmons.
48
HISTORY OF OLD BROAD BAY AND WALDOBORO
Such costly handicaps as these were nonexistent at the head of tide where ships could lie at the wharves and discharge and load. These and other factors of an economic nature united to make the head-of-tide area the inevitable village site. This devel- opment, however, was hastened by a tragic reversal in the for- tunes of Squire Thomas which exercised a marked crippling effect upon the Slaigo center. This reversal arose from the one basic flaw in the Squire's character. As pointed out in earlier chapters, he lived, conceived, and transacted business on the grand scale and in so doing was prone to overextend himself, and then, in order to recoup, to resort to expedients in the way of temporary aid to himself, which were of dubious legality. In an earlier pinch such a thing had happened with no evil consequences to any one. The real trouble came with the Federal Government in his cus- toms accounts. Here the easy-going local financial practices were not an accepted vogue, and an apparent misuse of Government funds met with a swift check in 1802. The consequences are recorded in the office of the Lincoln County Registry of Deeds at Wiscasset where the following entries appear:
The President of the United States of America to the Marshall of our District of Maine or his Deputy Greeting. Whereas the United States of America by the consideration of our Judge of our District of Maine aforesaid on the first Tuesday of September last recovered Judgement against Waterman Thomas of Waldoborough, Esquire, Joseph Eaton of Cambden, yeoman, and all in said District of Maine for the sum of $4000 dollars debt or damage and $33.32 costs of suit as to us appears of Record, whereof execution remains to be done. We command you, therefore, that of the goods, chattels or lands of the said Waterman ... you cause to be paid and satisfied unto the said United States at the value thereof in money, the aforesaid sums, being $4032.32 .. . We con- mand you to take the bodys of said Waterman ... and them to commit unto either of our gaols in our District of Maine ... and detain . . until they pay the full sums above mentioned.3
The funds necessary to meet the damages awarded to the Government were not available, and James W. Head of Warren, William Thompson of Waldoboro, and Matthew Cottrell of Damariscotta were appointed appraisers to set off sufficient of Squire Thomas' real estate to satisfy the verdict of the Court. The lands so delimited for sale comprised
all that part and parcel of the farm whereon the said Waterman now dwells, which lies and is situated on the northerly and easterly side of the public road leading from the bridge over Slaigo brook, so called near said Waterman's Saw Mill to Captain Charles Samson's dwelling house on the easterly side of said brook ... together with the barn, Store and buildings thereon standing.
3Bk. 51, pp. 232-235.
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The Making of the Village
This blow broke the financial power of Squire Thomas and removed from this neighborhood its economic spark plug, leav- ing the Slaigo area in a crippled state. Thereafter the nucleus of a village at the head of tide held the field and developed without any other competing center.
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