Friday, May 1, 2020

1864/1865 Payments on Behalf of Family in Robbinston, Maine, of Civil War Soldier Allen T.Gow; in 1860s/1870s Ledger of Financial Transactions of Robbinston


Allen T. Gow, age 18, serving in Company A of the Maine 31st Regiment: payments made in 1864 and 1865 to family members in Robbinston, Maine.

Found on numbered page 11 in a ledger of Robbinston, Maine, financial transactions from the mid 1860s to the 1870s.

Payments made on behalf of:
  • Archy Johnson, age 35; father [stepfather]
  • Elizabeth Johnson, age 38; mother
  • James Johnson, age 8 [step brother]
  • Jennette Johnson, age 6[ step sister]
  • William H. Johnson, age 5 [step brother] - became a candy maker; died in Robbinston, Maine, in 1915
  • Markam [presumably Malcolm] Johnson, age 2-1/2 [step brother]
  • Martha Johnson, age 1 [step sister]

According to his petition for naturalization, granted on 5 September 1872: Allen T. Gow was born in St. Andrews, New Brunswick, on 30 October 1847. He came to Robbinston, Maine, on 14 June 1856.

Either Allen's mother was either not married at the time of his birth, or Elizabeth was a Gow whose first husband was also a Gow.  About 1856, Elizabeth married Archibald Johnson, who came to Maine from Scotland about 1853 and worked as a ship carpenter.  Perhaps Elizabeth's marriage to "Archy" is the reason she and Allen came to Maine. Archy died in Robbinston, Maine, of cholera in 1904.

Allen Gow, then a seaman, enlisted in Company A of the Maine 31st Infantry Regiment on 30 January 1864 and was transferred to the Invalid Corps on August 16, 1864.

At the time of his petition for naturalization, Allen was living in Portland, Maine, with witnesses Leonard J. Perkins of Deering, Maine [now part of Portland] and Thomas A. Arnold of Portland, Maine, verifying in his favor.

Allen had a candy confectionery business in Portland, Maine; there, on 9 June 1869, he married Lucy Ann Brown. About 1881 Allen, Lucy, and their daughter moved to Lincoln, Nebraska, where more children would be born, and where Allen died on 17 July 1893.

He is buried in the Wyuka Cemetery at Lincoln, Nebraska, with his wife Lucy A. (Brown) Gow (1846-1922) and other family members.

If you have information on the family of Allen Gow, please leave a comment or contact me directly.

The ledger measures about 13" by 8" by 1/2" and contains entries for almost 50 families and many pages of other financial transactions. About half of the 178 numbered pages have entries. The ledger is missing its covers; the first page of what remains is shown below.


Soldiers and sailors listed in the ledger
  • The numbers in parentheses indicate specific pages in the ledger.
  • Many of the men listed below were born in New Brunswick or Nova Scotia and may have returned to Canada after the War.  See the map below to see how close New Brunswick and Nova Scotia were, particularly in the Age of Sail.
  • If you have information on any of the men listed below, please leave a comment or contact me directly.

The List, Alphabetized

Note: the map below has wording that puts Robbinston, Maine, in Saint Andrews Parish, but that parish is actually across the river in Canada.

Posted by at

1 comment:

  1. UnknownSeptember 17, 2021 at 12:14 AM

    Allen S Gow was my great grandfather and I do have "all" of his family names and dates (but lacking some documentation). If there is anything I could help with, I would be happy to do so.

    Douglas Allan Robinson (b May 7 1944).

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)