Thursday, June 30, 2016

1847 Receipt from Orland, Maine; Names Joseph Wilson and Rufus Buck


Receipt from Orland, Maine, dated October 28, 1847, where Rufus Buck acknowledged receipt of $1.20 from Joseph Wilson for gutter poles, or vice versa.


From brief online research, hopefully correct:  [corrections and additions requested]

Rufus Buck was presumably the Rufus Buck of Bucksport, Maine, who was born January 23, 1797, according to his gravestone, or Rufus' son Rufus Sewall Buck, who was born in 1831 and could have signed the document on his own behalf or that of his father.   Their ancestor, Jonathan Buck of Haverhill, was one of the first settlers of the area.  Rufus Buck, presumably the father or son previously mentioned, wrote a history of Bucksport in 1857.

Joseph Wilson may have been Joseph Wilson, born May 9, 1821, possibly at Castine, Maine, son of John Hibbert Wilson and his second wife Mary (Littlefield) Wilson.  This Joseph married Abigail Irish at Castine, Maine, in 1843. According to a  Faylene Hutton Cemetery Collection record, Abigail died July 8, 1845.  Joseph married Mary Jones in 1847 and had, I believe, three children with her.  The aforementioned cemetery record shows that Joseph himself died fairly young, on March 30, 1859; Mary died in 1909.

If you have corrections to the information above, or if you have alternate theories for the identities of Rufus Buck and/or Joseph Wilson, please leave a comment or contact me directly.

Although the icon for Bucksport is located inland on the map below, the major village of Bucksport today is along the Penobscot River.

3 comments:

  1. It's odd I come across this today. I just this week started researching a bit for my sister-in-law who is a Buck, her family from up north. The one bit of info she had was that Jonathan Buck of Haverhill was an ancestor. :)

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