Saturday, May 2, 2020

1865 Payments on Behalf of Parents in Robbinston, Maine, of Civil War Sailor Philip Caffrey; in 1860s/1870s Ledger of Financial Transactions of Robbinston


Philip Caffrey, age 20, a sailor on the Gunboat Ossipee: payments made in 1864 to his parents in Robbinston, Maine.

Found on numbered page 9 - with the account of brothers Lyman Vose and Elisha Vose in the upper portion of the page - in a ledger of Robbinston, Maine, financial transactions from the mid 1860s to the 1870s.

Payments were made on behalf of:
  • Michael Caffrey, age 65; father
  • Mary Caffrey, age 63; mother

There's mention of Michael Caffrey, his wife Mary and their children, including Philip, shown as born in 1843, in the database First Families of New Brunswick. Michael, born about 1808 in County Wicklow, Ireland, brought his family from Ireland to Saint Andrews, New Brunswick about 1848, where their last child, James, was born.

If you look at the map below, you'll see that Saint Andrews, New Brunswick, and Robbinston, Maine, are a short sail or row across the mouth of the Saint Croix river from each other - in some frigid winters as late as the 1900s, hardy folks would walk between them (thinking of you, Rob Golding.

 To have an idea of Philip's life on the USS Ossipee, read this selection below from the mid 1870s; life aboard during the Civil War era would presumably have been even more arduous.





I wonder if Philip Caffrey is this Philip Caffrey (-1887), a U.S. Navy sailor buried in the Hampton National Cemetery at Hampton, Virginia.

If you have information on the family of Philip Caffrey, 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.

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