A couple weeks ago, a friend and I were wandering a bit along the Maine coast. We were mostly interested in yarn and fabric (having met through a crafting group), but she's fairly recently started tracing her family tree, so we stopped at the courthouse in Wiscasset, the county seat for Lincoln County. I had ancestors there when it was still called Pownalborough, but unfortunately the multi-greats-grandfather who was the town clerk, in charge of recording marriages, forgot to record his own :-(
Her digging showed that some of her family likely lived in Alna, a couple towns away, so we headed that way for her to poke around a bit more and to get a feel for the area, as she's only been to Maine a few times.
Alna (settled earlier as North Pownalborough, incorporated in 1794 as New Milford, named changed to Alna in 1811; birthplace of EA Robinson and Dr. Fred H. Albee {who 'invented'bone grafting based on what he had learned on the family farm in Alna about tree grafting}) has an absolutely gorgeous old meetinghouse, built in 1789:
In 1812, the town selectmen voted to have Captain Abraham Walker keep dogs out of the meetinghouse on the Sabbath.
In 1823, there was a disastrous fire in the area of town west of the meetinghouse; a special tax was levied to provide relief to those who needed it.
As my friend was looking for her relatives, I decided to also wander around the burying ground. Who doesn't love a nice cemetery, right?
Some lovely older headstones:
But this set of four markers, all in a row, is what caught my attention.
Four children of Francis and Mary Turner, all four of whom died in a span of three weeks in the summer of July 1861.
Horace died 13 July, aged 5.
Clara died 26 July, aged 3.
Francis died 1 August, aged 1.
And then Samuel died 3 August, aged 7.
Their parents lived longer ~ Francis died in 1881, while Mary lived until 1901.
So, being the (addicted? obsessed?) genealogist that I am, the questions started flying in my brain....
So, I found them on the 1860 census, in Alna, all born in Maine:
Francis, 44, farmer
Mary, 38
Harriet, 9
Samuel, 6
Horace, 4
Clara, 2
Nancy, 29 (Francis's sister? The two of them were a household in 1850. She married Edward Cleaveland in 1869 and in 1880 they were living in Hardwick MA. By 1900, she was widowed and still living in Hardwick, this time with her sister Olive Palmer in the household.)
(Note: Francis was born in July 1860, so missed being recorded in the returns, which were supposed to reflect the population in 1 June 1860.)
So, poor Harriet.... the only surviving sibling after the other four died. A trip to the Maine State Library and Archives didn't produce any death records or other information about how the four children died. Whatever the cause, it makes me happy to live in an era of modern medicine ~ vaccines and anti-biotics can be quite helpful.
I did find Francis and Mary's marriage record ~ 16 March 1851. She was Mary Knight from Pittston, Maine (a nearby town).
Based on his children's marriage records, Francis was likely born in Bristol ME, the town on the other side of Wiscasset from Alna. He was born around 1817, and may have had older siblings (see more about his family below). If so, they had not moved to Alna when a census of families with school-aged children (those ages 4 to 21) was done in 1821. On the other hand, he was too old (about 50) to be on the 1865 militia list for the town, which listed men from 19 to their mid-40s.
Side note: the Maine state archives and library ~ absolutely wonderful resources.....didn't intend to, as I already have lots of books out from both there and the local library, but there's so much good stuff I brought another eight books home to read ~ one of which is quite likely to become the starting point for my diary in this series two weeks from now ;-)
In 1870, the family looks like this, still living in Alna and all born in Maine:
Francis, 53, farmer (real estate $2500, personal estate $600)
Mary, 48
Harriet, 19
Mary Francis, 8
Flora Etta, 5
In 1869, Harriet (Hattie) married John Witham and they had five children (Horace Albert, Stella, Otis, Hattie May, and John Edgar), all of whom lived to adulthood (found marriage records for all five).
1880 census, living in Alna:
Francis, 63, farmer
Mary, 58
Mary F., 18
Flora E., 15, at school
John Witham, 28, farm labour
Hattie Witham, 29
Horace A., 1
Mary Francis married Matthew Moore in 1906, and Flora Etta possibly married someone named Johnston (no marriage record ~ name from gravestone next to the others).
Didn't find any definitive proof, but it's very likely that Francis's parents were Asa and Sarah (possible maiden name Longfellow) Turner, also buried in the Alna burying ground:
Nancy (Turner) Cleaveland's sister Olive married John Palmer, and the two widowed sisters are living in Hardwick MA in the same household in 1900. Olive's parents were Asa Turner (son of Starbird Turner and Olive Davis ~ so Olive was named for her paternal grandmother) and Sarah Longfellow (source ~ her 1906 death certificate in MA; Nancy died in 1913 but the informant for her death certificate left a fair number of blank spaces....). So, if Francis is their brother (he and Nancy are a household in 1850 and she's living with his family in 1860 ~ before relationships are stated on the census), he is the son of Asa and Sarah, who are buried very close to him in the Alna cemetery.
So, yeah, I sometimes get sidetracked from my own family....