The Packard surname carried down through the generations ended with the marriage of Harriet A. Packard, to Lt. George Studley, grandmother of my grandmother, Alice Packard Studley, Harriet undoubtedly got to hold her grandchild, Alice, but died when Alice was two years old. Our Packard ancestral line in America extends from the Packard immigrant in 1638 to Hingham, Mass., traversing through Maine for several generations, and ending with Harriet’s death, a full circle back to Massachusetts in 1893.
Harriet Packard (1827-1893) was a 5th generation immigrant whose grandparent ancestors lived in Massachusetts until they left the security of settled Easton for new lands in New Hampshire and finally Maine. Her paternal grandfather, Samuel Packard (1751-aft. 1810), was a Revolutionary veteran of the Battle of Rhode Island before his move to the north. Her grandmother, Bethiah Waters, was a Mayflower descendant of William Bradford, governor of the Plymouth Colony.
This photo was likely taken in the 1880s while living in the Hyde Park area of Boston. She is wearing pierced earrings, a large cameo brooch, and a double lace collar.
Harriet was born in the coastal town of Thomaston, Maine, in 1827, in that section set off to form East Thomaston in 1848 and a subsequent name change to Rockland in 1850. She was the second of four children born to Samuel Packard (1788-1866), a farmer, and Harriett Young (1800-1856), second marriages for both. Her dad was already 39 years old when Harriet was born.
The town of Thomaston itself was a prosperous lumbering, shipbuilding, marble, lime center in Harriet’s day, and Maine had been admitted to the Union only seven years before her birth.
The famous Revolutionary War hero, General Henry Knox, retired to Thomaston in 1795 - just a few years after our Packards moved to the area - and built a magnificent four-story mansion named Montpelier. General Knox was coincidentally the son-in-law of the heir holder of the Waldo patent for the area,. The irony is not lost that General Knox's grandfather-in-law and original holder of the patent was a Crown sympathizer. The general’s mansion was razed in 1871, but reconstructed by the community in 1929, still standing and worth a visit. He is buried in the Thomaston cemetery. Such a small town, likely Harriet and her dad hob-knobbed with the general at the early 19th c. town establishments.
In 1845, 18 year-old Harriet married 21 year-old George Studley in Thomaston, a marriage that lasted 48 years and produced six children.
Part of Thomaston was set off to be East Thomaston in 1848 and renamed Rockland in 1850. The 1850 Rockland census showed Harriet’s family living in Rockland. Harriet, George, their two young children, George’s brother Benjamin, and 4 other young men also carpenters were living in some type of group living, perhaps a tenement house.
By 1860, Harriet and George are living in Camden, the next town up from Rockland, with their six children and George is farming.
In August 1862, George enlisted in the 19th Maine Infantry and went off to war. He quickly rose through the rank to the level of lieutenant. His brothers Benjamin and John, also enlisted in different Maine regiments. George fought in many of the eastern campaigns, including Fredericksburg, Gettysburg, Cold Harbor, the Wilderness, and Spotsylvania Courthouse.
Meanwhile, back home, Harriet had been pregnant when George enlisted, and she delivered their youngest and last child, Sidney, our great-grandfather, in February 1863. Many of the officers were given leave during the wintering of 1863-64, and George likely went home to Maine to see his newborn son.The oldest son, Albert, would have just turned 18 and soon after George’s visit Albert enlisted in the 6th Light Artillery. Both he and his dad were at the Battle of the Wilderness, but Albert didn’t see action until a few days later at Spotsylvania Court House. He was killed there at the Bloody Angle, on the same battlefield as his father, only 18 years old.
How do parents cope with the loss? Harriet had been left to raise six children ranging from toddler to teenagers, and to take care of the farm by herself for the three years George was away. Her mother died eight years before and her father was elderly, living close by with another son, Samuel. Indeed, the 1860 census shows several Packards nearby. Several other family members and men in the community were away at war. Likely, the remaining women banded together for support. We can just hope.
Just a month after Albert’s death, George was fighting at Gettysburg as an officer and all the way to Appomattox. He and his two brothers survived the war, and five years later the 1870 census shows the family had moved to the Chelsea area of Boston, a blue collar neighborhood. He and his 21 year-old son, also named George, are working as carpenters, and the four younger children are still in the home.
In the 1880 census, two of the children have married and moved out, Alice is working as a seamstress, and 17 year-old Sidney, our great-grandfather, is working as an express clerk.
Over the next decade, three more children were married, including Sidney’s marriage to Martha Borden Hathaway. Sidney relocated to Fall River as a 21 year old in 1884 and worked his way up through the grocery business to owning his own store.
The Boston Herald noted Harriet attended the 250th anniversary and reunion of the Packard family held in Boston in August 1888.
Harriet died in Boston in January 1893 with an “abdominal tumor, probably carcinomatous.” They were living at 2 Brookside Avenue in Boston at the time of her death. No cemetery or headstone has been located for either George or Harriet, nor is burial mentioned in Harriet’s obituary. Very likely they were both cremated; Forest Hills Crematory was established in Boston in 1893 around the time cremations were beginning to take off in the US.
Sixty nine year-old George remarried within the year to a 33 year old-daughter of Catholic Irish immigrants, Harriet Sweeney, but moved shortly thereafter to a disabled veterans home in Camden, Maine, his hometown, and remained a resident until 1898. After returning to Boston, by this time in his mid-seventies, he fathered two more children, both of whom died as infants.
Harriet and George’s children:
Albert E Studley, b. 1846 in Rockland, enlisted at age 18 in the 6th Maine Light Artillery, tragically killed in his first battle at Sportylvania Court House during the Civil War.
George Leslie Studley, b. 1848 in Rockland, died 1931 in Boston; a carpenter and house joiner like his father.
Aramenta Dormer Studley, b. 1853 in Rockland; twice married, the first to a man who ran off to Canada; worked as a housekeeper; died in 1940 in Malden, MA, age 87.
Alice M Studley, b. 1856 in Hope, ME, a very small town inland from Camden/Rockport. She married an older guy, a Boston merchant, and by 1900 they moved to Parsonfield, Maine, where they were farmers. By 1910, she was divorced, living with her sister, Aramenta, and working as a dressmaker. She made lovely dresses for her niece, my grandmother, Alice. She died sometime after 1930.
Lisette Studley, b. 1860 in Camden, ME; twice married with one chlld, and died after 1930 in Chatham, MA.
Sidney Elmer Studley, b. 1863 in Camden, ME; married Martha Hathaway Borden in Fall River, two daughters, died in 1941.
Next installment: The ancestral Packards, 1638-1827