Monday, July 30, 2018

Calling card of Henry Burton Voter (1867-1944) of Farmington, Maine


Calling card of H. Burton Voter; presumably of Henry Burton Voter (1867-1944) of Farmington, Maine; nothing on reverse.

Henry Burton Voter, the son of Warren Voter and Lydia or Lida (White) Voter, married Annie Celestia Randall, daughter of William Randall and Sarah J. (Foster) Randall, on December 7, 1895 at Farmington, Maine.

The first two items on a page offered online by Maine Masons pertain to Henry Burton Voter, the second of which is his obituary.

If you have information to share on the Voter and/or Randall families, please leave a comment or contact me directly.


1812 Document, possibly Freetown, Massachusetts area: George C. Briggs; Capt. John Terry; Williams; Sillas Tisdale


September 2, 1812 handwritten document where George C. Briggs is inquiring of Mr. Williams if there is anything due on the Sillas Tisdale Note and, if so, to have it - the payment or the information - sent to Briggs by way of Captain John Terry.

The document may have involved the maritime shipping industry out of the Freetown, Massachusetts, area.

Whether Sillas is Silas, or if it's Silas Tisdale or Silas & Tisdale or Silas at Tisdale or a vessel named Sillas out of Tisdale, I can't determine.

The reverse, shown below, indicates that Capt. John Terry did indeed receive a payment, in the amount of $3 dollars and 34 cents.


I found a George Chase Briggs (1784-1854) and a John Terry, both involved in the maritime shipping industry, mentioned multiple times in the 1902 publication: A History of the town of Freetown, Massachusetts: with an account of the Old Home Festival, July 30th, 1902There's an especially interesting comment on a John Terry, shown below - presumably an ancestor of the sea captain John Terry.


Perhaps Mr. Williams was Seth P. Williams, also a resident of Freehold, Massachusetts, or one of his relatives.

There's a Find a Grave memorial for Abigail (Terry) Briggs, wife of George C. Briggs, and presumably George is buried there, too, but there's no memorial for him.

If you can tie the clues in this document together in order to determine the locale and perhaps further identify the people mention, please leave a comment or contact me directly.

Just in case, the document has a tie to Freetown, Massachusetts:

Sunday, July 29, 2018

Account of Sugar Refined in 1815 in the Sugarhouse of Benjamin West on Cambridge Street, Boston, Massachusetts


Handwritten account of all the Sugar, which is liable to pay excise, refined in the Sugarhouse in Cambridge Street in Boston, Massachusetts, improved by Benjamin West in the quarter ending December 31, 1815.

The document measures a bit more than 12" long so was too big for my scanner.  The image below was taken with a phone camera and captures the length but not the color.


The reverse of the document has some text right side up and some upside down.


The reverse scanned in two images:



Benjamin West was born February 26, 1776 at Needham, Massachusetts, son of Rev. Samuel West and Priscilla (Plimpton) West. On April 21, 1811 at Boston, Massachusetts, Benjamin married his first cousin Charity West, daughter of Deacon Timothy West and Lois (Dexter) West.  They raised their family at Boston and later moved to Charlestown, New Hampshire. After Benjamin's death in 1829, Charity married George Olcott.

An enlargement of Benjamin West's signature, executed on January 1, 1816.


Benjamin, Charity and George are all buried in the Forest Hill Cemetery at Charlestown, New Hampshire with other members of the West family.

An archive of the papers of the West family, mostly concerning Benjamin West's sugarhouse at Boston, is held in the William L. Clements Library at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

If you have information on the West family of New Hampshire and Massachusetts, please leave a comment or contact me directly.

1823 Document from Danvers, Massachusetts: Mrs. Martha Fowler; Russell; William Francis; Hannah Putnam; Adams & Tyler


Handwritten document started on February 1, 1823 listing bills paid by Mrs. Martha Fowler of Danvers, Massachusetts.  Payees listed on the document [in order]:
  • Russell
  • William Francis
  • Hannah Putnam
  • Adams & Tyler


Mrs. Martha Fowler may have been Martha (Page) Fowler (1780-abt 1824), daughter of Jeremiah Page and Martha (Crosby) Page and wife of John Fowler (1778-1824); as noted on pages 152 and 153 in The Fowler Family: a Genealogical Memoir of the Descendants of Philip and Mary Fowler, of Ipswich, Massachusetts. Ten Generations 1590-1882.

More information on the Fowler family of Danvers, Massachusetts, is contained in the Fowler Family Papers, held in the Phillips Library Digital Collections of the Peabody Essex Museum.

If you have information on any of the people mentioned on this document, please leave a comment or contact me directly.

Saturday, July 28, 2018

1821 Token of Respect to Student Ann Caroline Potter in New York City from Teachers Hezekiah Gold Ufford and Lewis Bixby


Token of respect, dated July 24, 1821, given to student Miss Ann Potter in New York City by her teachers H. G. Ufford and L. Bixby.   I believe these people were Ann Caroline Potter (1808-1882); Hezekiah Gold Ufford (1779-1863); and Lewis Bixby (1795-1866).

The token of respect came with a group of papers, including Family Record pages removed from a Bible, that pertain to the genealogy of several families:
  • Albertson
  • Burke
  • Coryell
  • Crone
  • Friend
  • Gilman
  • Layman
  • Stewart
  • Upton

As noted in the accompanying papers, Miss Ann Potter was Ann Caroline Potter, born in 1808 in New York City and future wife of New York City attorney Frederick Wait Burke, a native of Woodstock, Vermont.  Ann died on August 23, 1882 at Brooklyn, New York; her death record indicates that her father was born in New Jersey and her mother on Long Island in New York.  The Mary Potter living with the Burkes at the time of the 1850 and 1860s Censuses was presumably Ann's widowed mother.

H. G. Ufford was presumably Rev. Hezekiah Gold Ufford, born in 1779 and a graduate of Yale College. Below, his obituary in the Yale publication Obituary Record of Graduates of Yale College Deceased from July, 1859, to July, 1870, noting that he was born April 14, 1779 at Stratford, Connecticut, son of Samuel Ufford and Abigail (Gold) Ufford:


L. Bixby may have been Rev. Lewis Bixby, whose name appears with that of H. G. Ufford in a testimonial of the Story of Jack Halyard, the Sailor Boy.  This Lewis Bixby was born in New Hampshire about 1795, graduated from Yale College and taught in several places in New York throughout his career.  

Below, his mention on pages 563 and 564 in A Genealogy of the Descendants of Joseph Bixby, 1621-1701, of Ipswich and Boxford, Massachusetts..., compiled by Willard Goldthwaite Bixby and published in 1914:



If you have information on Ann Caroline Potter, Hezekiah Gold Ufford and/or Lewis Bixby, please leave a comment or contact me directly.

Friday, July 27, 2018

1869 Document Certifying the Marriage of William Henry Veasy [Veasey/Veazie] and Miss Lucinda M. Potter, both of Stark, New Hampshire, at Lancaster, New Hampshire


1869 document where Henry O. Kent, Justice of the Peace, is certifying that he married William H. Veasey and Miss Lucinda M. Potter, both of Stark, New Hampshire, on September 15, 1869 at Lancaster, New Hampshire.

Note that William's surname is spelled two different ways on the document and yet a different way on his gravestone: Veasey; Veazie; Veasy.

The document is comprised of a large sheet of paper folded once into a dimension of 10" by 7-3/4".  There's a tiny bit of handwriting on the back pane, which gives an alternate spelling for William's name as W. H. Veazie, shown below:


To Whom it May Concern
This certificate witnesses that on the 15th day of September 1869, I joined in lawful wedlock under the Laws of the State of New Hampshire, at Lancaster in said State.
Mr. William H. Veasey and Miss Lucinda M. Potter, both of Stark, N.H.  The certificate of the Town Clerk of Stark and my certificate of marriage appended thereto is also on file in the office of the Town Clerk of the town of Lancaster.
Witness my hand at Lancaster aforesaid, this 15th day of September A.D. 1869.
Henry O. Kent
Justice of the Peace
[stamp: Coos County Registry of Deeds
Received Oct 12 1905
Recorded Volume 126 Page 375
Examined/Attest
D. Eugene Rowell, Register

According to information on their monument: William Henry Veasy and Lucinda M. Potter were both born in 1847.  William was born in Groveton, New Hampshire, the son of John Veazie and Lucy (Hall) Veazie.  [Notice that Groveton is written on the back of the document.] Lucinda was born at Stark, New Hampshire, the daughter of Justus M. Potter and Hannah (Dodge) Potter.

William and Lucinda made their home in Coos County, New Hampshire, and had at least two children.  William, who died in 1910, and Lucinda, who died in 1920, are buried in the Northumberland Cemetery at Northumberland, New Hampshire, under the surname Veasy.

Justice of the Peace Henry Oakes Kent is buried in the Sumner Street Cemetery at Lancaster, New Hampshire.  His Find a Grave memorial shows a photograph of Col. Kent and gives a family history.

If you have information on the Veasy/Veasey/Veazey/Veazie, Potter and/or Kent families, please leave a comment or contact me directly.

Thursday, July 26, 2018

1743 Sampler Wrought by Mary Gisborne


Sampler wrought in 1743 by Mary Gisborne.  A l988 letter on the reverse, shown below, speculates that Mary might have been from New Hampshire, and I did find Gisborne families in New England.

She may also have been the Mary Gisborne who was born at the British Chaplaincy at St. Petersburg, Russia, daughter of Consul Thomas J. Gisborne, though I found an unsourced reference that this Mary died in 1837 at Stockholm, Sweden.

And it would be fun to think that she might have been Maria (?) Reveley Gisborne, to whom poet Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote his "Letter to Maria Gisborne" in 1820.



The letter above mentions that the crown in the design indicates a loyal subject of colonial America, but it seems also a likely symbol among needle workers in the British empire.

If you have a theory as to the identity of Mary Gisborne, please leave a comment or contact me directly.  Thanks for stopping by!

Sampler with Family Register of the William Brown family, possibly West Bath, Maine


This sampler was hanging on a wall at a Maine antique show sponsored by the Camden-Rockport Historical Society over the weekend of July 21-22, 2018.  The Boston exhibitor graciously gave permission for a photograph.  Sorry for the reflections in the images!

It records the birth dates and marriage date of William Brown and wife Diliah [?], who were born in what appears to be 1755 and 1759 respectively and who married in 1780.  It also provides the birth dates of eleven children, two of whom died young.

They may have been the William Brown and Delia Brown who are buried in the Orchard Hill Cemetery at West Bath, Maine, along with a Freeman Brown, all of whose dates roughly match the dates in the sampler.  There's a William Brown, born in 1782 and died in 1861, buried in the nearby Lombard Cemetery at West Bath, Maine; his wife Joanna (Merritt) Brown had died earlier in 1836.

An online tree has all of the information contained in this sampler but is otherwise unsourced and doesn't mention a locale.  It also has the will of a William Brown attached to it, but I've since been told  that the will was originally attached to the tree of a totally different William Brown and was apparently attached to  the tree of William and "Diliah" in error.

I'm wondering if the person who created the online tree saw the sampler at some point, in person or from images when it was earlier put up for auction, but didn't pursue any further clues to the family's identity.


Children:
  1. Elizabeth Brown, born September 9, 1780; died 1787
  2. William Brown, born September 14, 1782
  3. Nathaniel Brown, born November 25, 1783; died 1806
  4. Thomas Brown, born June 20, 1785
  5. Hannah Brown, born January 20, 1787
  6. Eliza Brown, born February 23, 1789
  7. Benjamin Brown, born May 17, 1791
  8. Della Brown, born March 26, 1793
  9. John Brown, born January 31, 1795
  10. Freeman Brown, born September 13, 1797
  11. Mary Brown, born December 16 [or 15], 1797

If you recognize the family above, whether from Maine, England, Massachusetts or somewhere else, please leave a comment or contact me directly.

I have contact information for the owner, as of July 22, 2018, in case anyone is interested in tracking this sampler down.  The price may have been on the reverse, but the sampler was hanging over my head over a display of breakable things.  Sadly, in my attempt to photograph this and adjacent samplers, I didn't ask the owner for pricing.

Just in case, a map of West Bath, Maine:

Tuesday, July 24, 2018

1827 Sampler with Family Register, "Wrought by Hannah Buxton" (b. 1812), Daughter of Joseph Buxton & Mary (Osborn) Buxton of New Hampshire


This sampler was hanging on a wall at a Maine antique show sponsored by the Camden-Rockport Historical Society over the weekend of July 21-22, 2018.  The Boston exhibitor graciously gave permission for a photograph.  Sorry for the reflections in the images!

As you can read above, the sampler was "Wrought by Hannah Buxton [in] 1827".  Hannah was the daughter of John Buxton (1783-1816) and Mary (Osborn) Buxton (b. 1785), who married February 28, 1809.  Hannah gave her own date of birth, October 24, 1812, as well as the birth dates of her sisters Eunice and Alice.

A record in the data base New Hampshire Marriages, 1720-1920 and viewable on FamilySearch.org, with no image attached, notes that Joseph Buxton and Mary Osborne married on February 28, 1810 at Weare, New Hampshire.  According to this record, Joseph was born at Henniker, New Hampshire, the son of David and Ruth Buxton; and Mary Osborne was born at Weare, New Hampshire, to Moses Osborne and Ruth (Paige) Osborne.


I have contact information for the owner, as of July 22, 2018, in case anyone is interested in tracking this sampler down.  The price may have been on the reverse, but the sampler was hanging over my head over a display of breakable things.  Sadly, in my attempt to photograph this and adjacent samplers, I didn't ask the owner for pricing.

If you have knowledge of the Buxton and Osborn(e) families of New Hampshire, please leave a comment or contact me directly.

Tuesday, July 17, 2018

1863 Document: George F. Emery, Clerk of Maine District Court, Certifies that Jesse Davis is a Justice of the Peace for Androscoggin County


June 20, 1863 document signed by George F. Emery, Clerk of the Circuit Court for the Maine District, at Cumberland County, Maine, to certify that Jesse Davis was then a Justice of the Peace for Androscoggin County, Maine, in the midst of a term from January 29, 1857 to January 29, 1864.

The document measures a bit over 10" by 8"; nothing appears on the reverse.

George F. Emery was George Freeman Emery, LL.D, A.B., who was born at Paris, Maine, on November 10, 1817, son of Stephen Albert Emery and his first wife Sarah (Stowell) Emery.  It's interesting to note that George's sister was the first wife of Hannibal Hamlin, Lincoln's first Vice President; after Sarah's death, Hamlin married George's half-sister Ellen Vesta Emery. 

George Freeman Emery graduated from Bowdoin College in 1836, according to the excerpt shown below, from the Third General Catalogue of Colby College, Waterville, Maine, 1820-1908, which indicates that he was made an honorary graduate of Colby in 1891:



On August 21, 1841 at Portland, Maine, George Freeman Emery married Abby Eliza Appleton, daughter of John White Appleton and Sophia (Williams) Appleton. George died on July 1, 1904 at Portland, Maine, and is buried there in Evergreen Cemetery.

I wonder if Jesse Davis was this Jesse Davis from the Webster section of Sabattus, Maine, born July 21, 1814, whose Find a Grave memorial notes that he was was a selectman of Webster, a Senator in the 51st Legislature of Maine, Lisbon's town treasurer, Justice of the Peace, Captain in the Maine Militia and founder of the Manufacturer's Bank of Lewiston.  This Jesse Davis married Mary Ann Woodbury/Woodberry.

If you have a different take on the identifies of George F. Emery and Jesse Davis, please leave a comment or contact me directly.

Sunday, July 15, 2018

1836 Military Correspondence from Seward Dill, Commanding Officer of the Phillips Calvary of Phillips, Maine


September 14, 1836 letter sent from Phillips, Maine, from Seward Dill, Commanding Officer of the Phillips Calvary, to Capt. James E. Bates, Commanding Officer of the Infantry. 

The letter measures nearly 8" by 7-1/2" and contains one hole and ragged left and bottom margins.  There's nothing written on the reverse.

Dill was writing Capt. Bates to inform him that Dill had recently enlisted Mr. William Church into the Company of Cavalry in the 2nd Brigade and that John D. Towle had been dis-enrolled from Dill's company by Brigadier General Tufts, freeing Towle up to be enrolled elsewhere, as Capt. Bates would think proper.

Seward Dill may have been the Seward Dill born about 1808 at Lewiston, Maine, who lived in the Phillips area for a while before moving to Soquel, California, where he died.  He married Shual Wheeler Hammond.

James E. Bates was presumably James Erskine Bates who was born about 1809 and was postmaster at Avon, Maine, near Phillips.  He was married thrice: 1) Sally (Doble) Bates, who died about 1848; 2) Dorcas (Cook ?) Bates, who died about 1857; 3) Sarah Hamlin (Chick) Bates.  Information on his wives obtained from Historic Homes and Places and Genealogical and Personal Memoirs Relating to the Families of Middlesex County, Massachusetts, Volume 4, by William Richard Cutter, published in 1908.

William Church was presumably the William Church who was born in 1803 at Avon, Maine, and married Margaret Clark.

John D. Towle was presumably John Darling Towle, who was born about 1809 at Avon, Maine, and married Patience Dow.

Brigadier General Tufts - if you have an idea of the identity of Brigadier General Tufts, please leave a comment or contact me directly.

If you have information to share on any of these men, please leave a comment or contact me directly.

Monday, July 9, 2018

1812 List of Repairs to the Rollins House, presumably Midcoast Maine: How, Whitehouse, Abbott, Currier


1812 document where a Mr. How itemizes the cost of repairs to the Rollins house where he was then residing.  The front of the document mentions C. How, but the reverse shows either W. How, M. How or N. V. How.

The document doesn't mention a locale, but the person who sold it to me noted that it was found with others that pertain to Midcoast Maine.

In addition to How and Rollins, other people mentioned:
  • Mr. Teb*, carpenter  [Tebbetts or variant ?]
  • Mr. Whitehouse, a carpenter
  • Mr. Abbott, a painter
  • Mr. Currier, paint purveyor
  • Mr. How's sons

Readers: if these clues bring a locale and/or identities to mind, please leave a comment or contact me directly.


Sunday, July 8, 2018

c1815 Document, Brunswick, Maine: David Stanwood; Brunswick Cotton Manufactory; Luke Lambard; John Taylor or Tabor; Hunter ?


Circa 1815 document with one side, shown above, containing instructions for David Stanwood, Clerk of the Brunswick Cotton Manufactory, to call a meeting of the Shareholders of that firm, to be held at the hotel of Luke Lambard.  This document pertains to the Midcoast area of Maine, including the towns of Brunswick, Bath and environs.

The reverse contains
  • Note of Interest
  • Receipt for payment 
  • Arithmetic calculations
  • The name John Taylor or perhaps John Taybor or Tabor or Taber - your interpretation requested
  • Possibly the name Hunter - your interpretation requested


The paper measures approximately 7" by 7-1/2"

Interestingly, I found a sources online that state that the Brunswick Cotton Manufactory was the first cotton mill in Maine, petitioned for incorporation to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 1808 and opened in 1809.

David Stanwood was presumably the Colonel David Stanwood, born in 1788 at Brunswick, Maine, as described in a sketch on pages 156 and 157 (with his likeness on a page intervening) in A History of the Stanwood Family in America, by Ethel Stanwood Bolton, published in 1899.  Col. Stanwood was a graduate of Bowdoin College, a lawyer at Brunswick and a Colonel in the Maine Volunteer Militia.  In 1816, around the time of this document, he married Caroline Peace Lee.  I should note that there were several other men named David Stanwood.

There were two men by the name of Luke Lambard in Bath, Maine, one born about 1730 in Massachusetts, who died in 1820, and the younger who was born about 1770 and died in 1854.  I'm not sure which one of them owned the hotel mentioned in the document above.  One of them is mentioned in a document of 1801 where the selectmen of Bath, Maine, vouched for his character.  It was presumably the younger Luke, or maybe even a younger one still, who applied to the U.S. Marshall in 1820 to be the census enumerator for three more towns; in his application he drew a map of the towns he was already enumerating.  While researching Luke Lambard, I came across several online sites that show examples of the beautiful artwork of his daughters Rachel and Elizabeth.

If you have an alternate identity for either David Smallwood or Luke Lambard or a theory as to the identity of John Taylor [or Taybor or Tabor or Taber], please leave a comment or contact me directly.  I'd also like to hear your thoughts on what appears to be the surname Hunter.