Heirlooms Reunited

Friday, July 26, 2013

Portsmouth, Rhode Island Annual Report of 1899

Annual Report of the Town of Portsmouth, Rhode Island, with Treasurer's Report and Taxes Assessed for 1899. Printed by S. E. Fiske, 46 Granite Street, Fall River.

The report contains a brief history of the the Town, including Prudence Island, as transcribed below.

Transcript from the two pages of history of the the Town of Portsmouth:

The town of Portsmouth, in the County of Newport and State
of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, is situated on the
Island of Rhode Island and covers the northern half of said Island.
This town was one of the 4 original towns of the state and called
by the Indian name “Pocasset.” At a quarter meeting held on the
1st day of May A. D. 1639 it was agreed that the name of this town should be called Portsmouth, and at the General Court held at Newport on the 12th day of January A. D. 1840 the name of Portsmouth
was confirmed.

Portsmouth was always an agricultural town but the farmers
added to their gains and varied therefrom by fishing in the bays.

In 1647 the town received an addition to its territory, in the
acquisition of the Island of Prudence. This Island a part of Portsmouth has a peculiar history; its sale was that negotiated by the Narragansett Sachems to John Oldham before the coming of Roger Williams to Providence but after Oldham's death at Block Island in 1636 Roger Williams and Governor Winthrop of Boston purchased the Island and converted it into at large stock form. After holding it several years it passed from their hands to John Paine a merchant of Boston who desired to hold it free from the control of the colonial government and was successful for a time but soon the spirit of the State was aroused and Paine was arrested, imprisoned and found guilty of the charges reposed in him and finally the whole matter was peaceably and quietly settled and Prudence gave up her independent sovereignty and became a portion of the Town of Portsmouth, which it has since remained.

Portsmouth is girded on the cast by the waters of the Seaconnet
River, on the west by the waters of the Narragansett Bay on the
north partly by the waters of the Senconnet River and partly by
the waters of'the Narragansett Bay and is connected with the Town

of Tiverton by means of two bridges.

Population according to the last State census 1939.
Number of Persons enrolled to do military and naval duty 255.
Number of electors qualified to vote generally 410.
Number of births for the year ending December 1898, 42.
Number of deaths for the year ending December 1898, 28.
Number of marriages for the your ending 1898, 8.

Portsmouth was as very noted Town both in the Revolutionary
War of 1776 and the Civil War of 1861 and the residences where
General Prescott and General Lafayette quartered are still standing
and in good repair. Within the town are 4 Post Offices, namely: -
Portsmouth, South Portsmouth, Bristol Ferry and Prudence Island; 5 Churches, 7 School Houses, 1 Public Library and 1 Park.

The report is too long for me to transcribe all of the names within. If you're researching people who lived in Portsmouth, they may be noted here.

If you recognize names and have information to share, please leave a comment or contact me directly. Thanks!

Portsmouth, Rhode Island

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Obituary of Samuel Sherwood Day, Class of 1827, in 1885 Yale College Obituary Record

Obituary record of Samuel Sherwood Day, Class of 1827, in the June 1885 issue of the Obituary Record of Graduates of Yale College.

He became president of the Tanner's (National) Bank at Catskill, New York, after succeeding his father who had been involved in the bank's formation.

Transcript:

Samuel Sherwood Day, third son of Orrin and Mary B. (Hall) Day, of Catskill, N.Y., was born in Catskill, April 3, 1807.

On leaving College he returned home and became his father's valued assistant in business. In 1831 he also became interested in the management of the Tanner's (National) Bank, which was organized in that year under his father's presidency. In 1846 or 1847, he succeeded his father as president, in which position he continued for the rest of his life. In this capacity and in his general influence, his career was a blessing to the community. For the last few years he had suffered at times from a milder form of angina pectoris. He was actively engaged as usual on the 8th of April, 1885, was wakened by a sharp attack of pain during the following night, and died while sleeping, in the early morning of the 9th, at the age of 78.

He married, September 26, 1833, Catharine A. DeForest, of Huntington, Conn., who died Aug. 20, 1837, having borne two sons, one of whom died in infancy. He next married, June 16, 1842, Cornelia, E., daughter of the Hon. Joshua A. Spencer, of Utica, N.Y., by whom he had two sons and a daughter.

From online research, hopefully correct: [corrections and additions welcome!]

Samuel Sherwood Day was born 3 April 1807, at Catskill, New York, son of Orrin and Mary Burr (Hull or Hall) Day.

Samuel Sherwood Day's children with his first wife Catharine A. (DeForest) Day were:

Walter DeForest Day, born 27 October 1835; died 27 November 1889
Benjamin W. Day, born 11 June 1837; died 9 March 1838.

Wife Catharine, as noted above, died on 20 August 1837.

Samuel Sherwood Day married Cornelia Electa Spencer, daughter of Joshua Austin Spencer and Electa C. (Dean) Spencer, on 16 June 1842, at Catskill, New York. Their children:

Orrin Day, born 24 September 1845
Joshua Spencer Day, born 11 December 1846
Ellen or Helen Spencer Day, born 22 September 1848
Julia Day, born about 1852

I'm assuming that one of the daughters died young, as the obituary record mentions only two sons and a daughter.

If you information to share, please leave a comment for the benefit of other seekers.

List of deceased Yale College graduates in this issue

Augustus H. Abernethy, Class of 1864
Adolph Asher, Class of 1872
Robert M. Baker, Class of 1856
T. Jefferson Bassett, Class of 1853
Henry C. Beardslee, Class of 1826
Lewis S. Benedict, Class of 1834
Michael D. Benedict, Class of 1836
Theodore H. Benedict, Class of 1840
Frederick N. Bennett, Class of 1841
James Berdan, Class of 1824
George W. Blagden, Class of 1823
David Booth, Class of 1819
Marius Brandegee, Class of 1843
C. Lewis Brent, Class of 1849
Daniel Chadwick, Class of 1845
Henry Childs, Class of 1846
James H. Clendenin, Class of 1872
George H. Coffey, Class of 1859
Thomas Cowles, Class of 1829
S. Sherwood Day, Class of 1827
Sherman Day, Class of 1826
John DeForest, Class of 1826
James T. Dickinson, Class of 1826
Richard V. Dodge, Class of 1840
George B. Dusinberre, Class of 1855
Aaron R. Dutton, Class of 1837
Barnabas M. Fay, Class of 1833
George W. Fisher, Class of 1859
Samuel A. Fisk, Class of 1844
Samuel H. Fletcher, Class of 1824
Thomas E. Franklin, Class of 1828
William Frazier, Class of 1832
Theodore Gilbert, Class of 1825
George Goodyear, Class of 1824
John M. Gordon, Class of 1830
George M. Hanners, Class of 1823
Winthrop B. Hawks, Class of 1882
Thomas R. Hubbard, Class of 1829
William Hutchison, Class of 1854
Joseph H. Isham, Class of 1865
Thomas H. Jackson, Class of 1850
Barclay Johnson, Class of 1882
Ross Johnston, Class of 1870
Francis E. Kernochan, Class of 1861
Alfred Lambert, Class of 1843
Frank A. Langworthy, Class of 1872
Cortland L. Latimer, Class of 1832
Edward A. Lawrence, Class of 1884
James N. Lea, Class of 1834
Charles A. Lewis, Class of 1829
Allyn C. Loomis, Class of 1883
Oliver E. Lyman, Class of 1876
Darius Mead, Class of 1828
Timothy T. Merwin, Class of 1827
Charles L. Mills, Class of 1835
Hiram Moses, Class of 1825
George C. Murray, Class of 1845
William Norton, Class of 1829
John J. Orton, Class of 1842
Lewis R. Packard, Class of 1856
Francis H. Palmer, Class of 1847
David C. Perry, Class of 1833
Stephen T. Robinson, Class of 1827
Charles M. Runk, Class of 1845
William H. Russell, Class of 1833
Murray C. Shoemaker, Class of 1864
Benjamin Silliman, Class of 1837
Jonathan Silliman, Class of 1817
Elbert J. Smith, Class of 1847
Charles G. Southmayd, Class of 1856
John B. Staples, Class of 1827
Hezekiah Sturges, Class of 1841
Frank H. Taylor, Class of 1878
John L. Taylor, Class of 1835
Chauncey M. Thompson, Class of 1854
Albert Todd, Class of 1836
Charles Tracy, Class of 1832
Alexander C. Twining, Class of 1820
David A. Tyler, Class of 1844
Leonidas C. Vinal, Class of 1880
Jonathan Wales, Class of 1871
Jacob K. Warner, Class of 1850
D. Ellis Willes, Class of 1850
William L. Williamson, Class of 1853
Leonard Withington, Class of 1814
Dexter Witter, Class of 1824
J. Hampden Wood, Class of 1866
Robert W. Wright, Class of 1842

Edward Wurts, Class of 1832

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Thursday, July 25, 2013

Obituary of James Taylor Dickinson, Class of 1826, in 1885 Yale College Obituary Record

Obituary record of James Taylor Dickinson, Class of 1826, in the June 1885 issue of the Obituary Record of Graduates of Yale College.

After graduation, Dickinson practiced law at Montreal and then decided to enter the ministry. After studying at Andover Theological Seminary and Yale, he became the pastor at the Second church (Congregational) at Norwich, Connecticut. After the death of his first wife, he became a missionary at Singapore, where he stayed until about 1845 when ill health forced him to return home. He married again and lived at Middlefield, Connecticut, where he spent the remainder of his life in study in his library.

If you have corrections to the obituary below, or information to share, please leave a comment for the benefit of other seekers.

The last few pages of this booklet are a Summary of the deceased graduates and an index, all pages of which appear at the end of this post.

Transcript:

James Taylor Dickinson, the eldest child of Horace and Mary Ann (Taylor) Dickinson (both from Western Massachusetts), was born in Lowville, Lewis county, N.Y., October 27, 1806. His parents removed to Canada in 1816, and he entered College from Montreal in 1822.

After graduating he began the study of law in Montreal; but in 1827 he became convinced that he ought to enter the Christian ministry and removed to Andover Theological Seminary; he took the last year of his course (1829-30) in the Yale Divinity School.

He was ordained pastor of the Second (Congregational) church in Norwich, Conn., April 4, 1832, and on the 21st of November following married Mary, daughter of Samuel Hickok, of Burlington, Vt., where he had been preaching for some time and had declined a call to settle. She died in Norwich, April 6, 1834, at the age of 19; and on the 20th of August next, he resigned his pastorate that he might fit himself for the work of a foreign missionary. After one year of preparatory studies in medicine, he embarked in July 1835, for Singapore, in the East Indies, under an appointment from the American Board. Five years passed in the study of the Chinese and Malay languages, and in missionary labor. For four years from 1840 he was employed as a teacher in the Singapore Institution, till the loss of his health obliged him to return home.

In 1845, he settled in Middlefield, Conn., where he married , May 15, Sarah C., daughter of Deacon William Lyman, who survives him. Owing to his shattered health, he lived in seclusion, in the midst of his large and continually replenished library, chiefly occupied in reading and study. He published a few articles in periodicals, and contributed to Appleton's Cyclopedia an account of the Malay language; he also wrote a brief memoir of his brother-in-law, the Rev. George W. Perkins (Y.C. 1824), prefixed to a volume of sermons in 1859. These are the only results in print of his broad culture and accurate scholarship.

He died of paralysis, at his home in Middlefield, July 22, 1884, in his 78th year.

By his last will he added to a fund already established by him for the benefit of the College, which thus amounts to nearly $50,000; about 1500 volumes of his valuable library were also bequeathed to the College.

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Obituary of John DeForest, Class of 1826, in 1885 Yale College Obituary Record

Obituary of John DeForest, Class of 1826, in the June 1885 issue of the Obituary Record of Graduates of Yale College.

He was a physician at Watertown, Connecticut for the early part of his adult life, but suffered ill health in 1845 that forced him to give up his practice, and later extreme deafness that cut him off from society. His wife died in 1855 after a protracted illness. They had lost their first child, John Lyman DeForest, in infancy in 1832. And three years after Dr. DeForest's death in 1885, his surviving son, Erastus Lyman DeForest, died, unmarried.

Such a grim obituary - I hope there were some rays of sunshine in their lives.

Despite these challenges, Dr. DeForest was a philanthropist and a donor to the medical department at Yale. He endowed the DeForest Mathematics Prize at Yale upon the graduation of his son there with a degree in mathematics in 1854.

The last few pages of this booklet are a Summary of the deceased graduates and an index, all pages of which appear at the end of this post.

Transcript:

John DeForest, the eldest child of Benjamin and Alma (Southmayd) DeForest, was born in Watertown, Conn., March 31, 1806. After graduating, he studied medicine with Dr. Samuel W. Gold, of Goshen, Conn., for three years, and meantime attended two courses of lectures in the Medical Institution of Yale College, where he received the degree of M.D. in 1829. He practiced his profession for about a year with Dr. Gold, and then availed himself of a favorable opening in his native town, where he continued in practice until 1845, when in consequence of ill health he was obliged to relinquish his profession. For the rest of his life he was not engaged in any active business, and for many years before his death he was cut off from society of his friends by extreme deafness. During his long residence in Watertown, he distributed his large wealth freely and wisely for the furtherance off objects of benevolence and public utility. He was the founder of the Senior Mathematical Prizes in this College, and a generous donor, especially to the medical department.

He died of heart disease, in Watertown, March 11, 1885, at the age of 79.

He married, May 16, 1831, Lucy S., eldest daughter of Erastus Lyman, of Goshen, who died August 3, 1855, after twenty-one years of protracted suffering. Their elder son died in infancy; the younger (Y.C. 1854) survives them.

From online research, hopefully correct: [corrections and additions welcome!]

John DeForest was born 31 March 1806 at Watertown, Connecticut, or at Litchfield, Connecticut, the son of Benjamin DeForest III and Alma (Southmayd) DeForest.

On 17 May 1831, Dr. John DeForest married Lucy Starr Lyman, daughter of Erastus and Abigail (Starr) Lyman. Their children, mentioned above, were John Lyman DeForest, who died in infancy in 1832, and Erastus Lyman DeForest, born 27 June 1834.

Lucy Starr (Lyman) DeForest died in 1855, Dr. John DeForest in 1885, and Erastus in 1888.

If you have corrections and/or information to share, please leave a comment for the benefit of other seekers.

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Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Note dated 1804 at Windham, Maine, from Edmund Pray to William Hanson; witness Robert Plumer

Note dated October 1804 at Windham, Maine, written by Edmund Pray [or Edmond Pray] to William Hanson, and witnessed by Robert Plumer [Plummer].

The handwritten names were not the easiest to decipher, but crowdsourcing input from around the globe was a definite help.

Transcript:

Windham, October 1st 1804
For Value Received I Promise to pay to William Hanson Sixteen Dollars Ninety three cents on Demand with Interest as witness my Hand. Edmund Pray
Attest: Robert Plumer

From online research, hopefully correct: [corrections and additions welcome!]

There was a William Hanson, born 18 January 1762, who died at Windham, Maine, on 29 October 1814. He and his wife Matilda (Elder) had, I think, eleven children.

Edmund Pray was mentioned in an 1808 Act to create a Methodist Society in Gray and Windham:

There's a Maine Death Record for an Edmund Pray who was born about 1774 and died at age 82 on 31 May 1856, but the record doesn't list the place of death. He may have been the son of Joshua and Sarah (Roberts) Pray. I found several early 1800s marriage records for an Edmund/Edmond Pray, which might have referred to successive marriages of the same Edmund Pray or to different Edmund Prays.

Robert Plumer or Robert Plummer may be the Robert Plumer/Plummer born 3 June 1762 at Cape Elizabeth, son of Daniel and Joanna Plummer. He married Ruth Hatch at South Portland, Maine, on 26 November 1788 and they lived at Windham, Maine. There's a Robert Plumer/Plummer listed in the 1810 Census of Windham, Maine.

If you have information on William Hanson, Robert Plumer and/or Edmund Pray, please leave a comment or contact me directly. Thanks!

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Tuesday, July 23, 2013

c1900 Entry List for the Ossipee Valley Union Agricultural Association, Cornish, Maine

Official List of Entries of the Ossipee Valley Union Agricultural Association, Cornish, Maine, from the year 1900, if I'm reading the handwritten notation correctly.

The entries consisted of horses from Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts. All races were open to trotters and pacers.

The list is approximately 12-1/4" x 4-1/2". The Ossipee Valley Union Agricultural Association is now known as the Ossipee Valley Agricultural Society.

There's another handwritten notation that is possibly "We had a ? shower", but I'd like to hear your interpretation.

This list was found in an archive of papers that belonged to Loring Dunnells of Cornish, Maine, a Civil War veteran and farmer, who was born at Shapleigh, Maine, on 15 August 1838, son of David and Mary (Brown) Dunnells. The archive consists of many receipts, pension forms, a deed and such. Another post features what looks to be Loring's invitation to the 1864 Washington's Birth Day Ball at Limerick, Maine, with music by the Ira C. Seavey Full Quadrille Band.

Loring Dunnells' first wife was Almira B. Weeks, daughter of Samuel and Susan (Eastman) Weeks. They were married on 26 June 1865. I don't believe they had any children, at least living children, before Almira died on 17 March 1872.

Loring next married Nellie Flora Storer, daughter of George and Caroline (Warren) Storer. Loring and Nellie had at least three, possibly four children. Loring died in 1922 and Nellie in 1936.

If you have corrections to the information above, please leave a comment or contact me directly. Thanks!

Names on the page above: [some appear multiple times]
N. J. Foss, Cornish, Maine
George W. Carter, Biddeford, Maine
H. J. Holland, Somerville, Massachusetts
Irvin C. Warren, North Sebago, Maine
G. G. Runnells, South Waterboro, Maine
F. Durgin, South Waterboro, Maine
A. H. Jack, East Denmark, Maine
T. M. Douglass, Newhall [Windham], Maine
George Huntoon, Portland, Maine
F. B. Fogg, South Paris, Maine
H. Blake, Sanford, Maine
I. W. Rowe, Portland, Maine
Ira P. Woodbury, Portland, Maine
E. A. Randall, Portland, Maine
Charles Deering, Saco, Maine
W. H. Johnson, North Conway, New Hampshire
C. N. Trefethen, Portland, Maine
C. A. Studley, South Portland, Maine
J. P. Davidson, Center Conway, New Hampshire
O. W. Ramsey, Rochester, New Hampshire
W. A. Smith, Freedom, New Hampshire
C. H. Tibbetts, Sanford, Maine
John Skillings, Westbrook, Maine
H. Loren Merrill, Secretary

If you have information on H. Loren Merrill, or any of the owners or horses mentioned above, please leave a comment. Thanks!

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