Saturday, September 17, 2016

A Carter Family Portrait

I've written a number of times about my 3X great-grandfather, Elias Mellen Carter and his family. Here is a picture of Elias and his wife, Rebecca (Williamson) Carter and their eleven children. Rebecca was from Ireland and is my most recent immigrant ancestor. The Williamsons came to Maine sometime around 1820 so they were not part of the potato famine migration.  

In the front from left to right are children: Julia Elizabeth, Emily Jane, Timothy Cullen, William Lawson, Sarah Lillie, Helen Louise, and her twin, John Herbert.
In the back from left to right are children: Mary Elizabeth, Frances Ann, Augustus Mellen, and Anna Grace (in her mother's arms) and parents, Rebecca (Williamson) & Elias Mellen Carter.

Elias Mellen Carter
Augustus Mellen Carter
Edward Mellen Carter
T. Richard Carter - my grandfather

Other posts about the family:
Five Daughters Suddenly Gone
The Carter Farm - 1860 & 1880
The Carter Farm 1860
Rebecca Williamson - Fearless Female
Squire of the Little Village
We Consider Her Very Dangerous
Thanksgiving in Paris
Letters Found on E-Bay
Close Call

Saturday, September 3, 2016

The Spurr Memorial

Some April exploring took me to Spurr's Corner in Otisfield, Maine. I'd been wanting to go for awhile, just hadn't gotten around to actually doing it. My Spurr ancestors came from Massachusetts to Maine in 1776. I wrote about their migration in the post linked below. 

The History of Otisfield

"It is said that the first night they spent in Otisfield, they camped beside a large stone near the road. (A portion of that stone has since been moved to Spurr's Corner and a memorial tablet placed upon it.) He is buried in the yard south of Spurr's Corner. Through a mistake of the stonecutters the name is spelled Spyrr, instead of Spurr. They had nine children living, all born in Dorchester, and all came to Maine unmarried. They came to Windham in an oxcart and were the fourth family in town."

Here is a picture of the stone and a close up of the plaque. 



Spurr's Corner Monument - April 21, 2016
SPURR MEMORIAL
SEPT. 3, 1779
JOSEPH SPURR AND HIS FAMILY 
SPENT THEIR FIRST NIGHT IN THE FIELD BESIDE THIS
STONE AND BUILT THEIR CAMPFIRE UPON IT
Plaque, April 21, 2016

Joseph & Miriam (Lyon) Spurr - came to Otisfield in 1779
Enoch Spurr
Roxanna (Spurr) Stanley
Mary Frances (Stanley) Carter
Edward Mellen Carter
Thomas Richard Carter - my grandfather

Moving in an Oxcart

Spurr, William Samuel. A History of Otisfield: Cumberland County, Maine from the Original Grant to the Close of the Year 1944 by William Samuel Spurr. Otisfield, Me.: Published by the Otisfield Historical Society, 1994. PDF.