Plympton to Woodstock: Our Bryant Families

Our Bryant ancestry is complicated.

We had two colonial contemporary Bryant families unrelated to each other, both living in the Plymouth County area and united by marriage in the second generation. 

According to the Bryant Family genealogy, three brothers immigrated from Kent, England, in 1630 with their mother, Anne and stepfather, John Doane, a prominent Plymouth citizen and early settler of Eastham, Massachusetts. Of the three brothers, Thomas and our 10th GGF Stephen Bryant were bound out* to family friends, and the third, John, remained with Anne and stepfather Doane who went on to have another family.  John Doane, by the way, is also our 10th GGF through their son, Ephraim, in this second family.

*contracted to another family for housework and apprenticeships, as young as seven years old in some cases. Basically, indentured child labor.

Of these brothers, Thomas ran away from his master’s service. When found in the woods, he was whipped in front of the town council and William Bradford, governor of Plymouth colony and also a grandfather ancestor. This is the last known about young Thomas. John, who stayed with his mother and stepfather, went on to become a founding and prominent citizen of Scituate. The third brother, Stephen, fathered Abigail who married into our other Bryant line.

The Lieut. John Bryant who married Stephen Bryant’s daughter Abigail is not Stephen’s nephew, son of the Scituate John Bryant, but a Plympton John Bryant unrelated to the three brothers. And, no, it wasn't cousin marriage as many Ancestry.com profiles suggest. Indeed, the Scituate John Bryant married Mary Battles.

So it is that we have two unrelated Bryant lines in Plymouth County in the 17th century - Stephen who was one of the 3 brothers and Lieut. John whose parentage is unknown.

Present day Plymouth County

Stephen Bryant (1620-1693)

Stephen Bryant immigrated to Plymouth from England as a ten year old in 1630 and was bound out to our 9th GGF John Shaw, a friend of the Doane/Bryant family. The Shaws, Doanes and Bryants were all from Kent, Essex, England.

Stephen married the boss’s daughter, Abigail Shaw (1626-1694), in 1646 and among their nine children were two of our GGM’s, Abigail Bryant, who married Lt. John Bryant, and Mary Mercy Bryant who married Eleaser Pontus Churchill. 

John Shaw (1583-1638) and wife Alice Phillips (1592-1636) arrived in Plymouth by 1627 when he is listed as one of those drawing lots to tend the colony’s goats and cows. He acquired land and served on various town posts. By 1643, John’s son, Jonathan, and Stephen Bryant bought some acreage together. On John's death, he left substantial land to his former indentured child servant, Stephen Bryant.

Stephen purchased land in Plymouth in 1643  as well as various other parcels of land over the years.  He was admitted as a freeman of Plymouth in 1654. He served the usual community posts in Plymouth, including constable, surveyor of highways, and juryman.

Stephen and his brother-in-law, Jonathan Shaw, must have remained good buddies. In 1649, he and Jonathan were found guilty of working on Sunday - carrying barrels to the tar pits. While Stephen was given a warning, Jonathan was put in stocks.

Stephen and Abigail are buried in Burial Hill Cemetery in Plymouth in unmarked graves.

Lieut. John Bryant ( - 1731)

The family origins of 9th GGF Lieut. John Bryant are unknown, but he was living in Plympton at least by1650 when he received a grant of 100 acres close to father-in-law Stephen Bryant in an area of Plymouth later incorporated as Plympton.* He is listed as a First Settler of Plympton.

*Originally part of Plymouth, Plympton was first settled by Europeans between 1670 and 1680, incorporated as a town in 1707.  Plympton initially included all of Carver & Halifax as well as small portions of Kingston and Middleborough. Before incorporation, the area was called Western Precinct of Plymouth.

The origin of his title "Lieut." is unclear, but presumed to be from defense of the town during that period of conflict and threat from the Native American population in New England.

Lieut. John was a mariner involved in shipping between England and the New England coast which was extensive at the time. He built a house on the shore of Jones River Pond said to be the largest in Plymouth County. He held various customary posts in the community, including juror, road surveyor, and constable.

As mentioned, Lieut. John married Abigail Bryant (1646-1715) in 1665 and they had seven children whose births were recorded in Plymouth. A 36-year old son, Benjamin, also a mariner, drowned in 1724 while trying to make port at Plymouth during a storm. John died in 1708 and Abigail in 1714. Both are probably buried in the Old Cemetery at the Green in Plympton, now Middleborough, but there is not documentation I can find.

Samuel Bryant Sr. (1673-1750)

8th GGF Samuel Bryant, the fourth child and oldest son of Lt. John and Abigail, was born in Plympton and, like his father, was a mariner as a young man. He was a deacon of the church, and landowner at the time of incorporation of Plympton in 1707.

Samuel married Joanna Cole (1672-1736) in 1698 and they raised seven children on a farm in Plympton. Widowed at age 63, Samuel married secondly widow Elizabeth Sampson Cushman. Samuel died in 1750, age 77, and both are buried in Hillcrest Cemetery in Plympton (Row 1-P10-S9).

Hillcrest Cemetery, Plympton

Bryant Plot in Hillcrest Cemetery in foreground

Joanna, wife of Deacon Samuel Bryant

Inscription

HERE LYES YE
BODY OF JOANNA
BRIANT WIFE TO
DEACON SAMUEL
BRIANT WHO DEC.
DEC YE 18th
1736 IN
YE 65th YEAR
OF HER AGE

IN MEMORY OF

DEACn SAMUEL

BRYANT WHO

DIED MARCH 3d

1750

IN ye 77th YEAR

OF HIS AGE

Deacon Samuel Bryant

Deacon Samuel Bryant, Jr. (1699-1774)

7th GGF Deacon Samuel Jr. married Tabitha Ford (1702-1773) in 1723, and they had 11 children. Following in family tradition, Samuel Jr. was an ocean-going ship captain, and as the eldest son he inherited half of his father’s land in Plympton.

Seventeen year old 10th GGF William Ford (1604-1676) arrived in Plymouth from Surrey, England with his widowed mother and two siblings in 1621 on the ship Fortune. He settled in Marshfield where he established Dunham’s Mill. William married Anna Eames in1632. William and Anna are GGPs of Tabitha; all generations lived in Marshfield until Tabitha’s parents moved to Pembroke.

Samuel and Tabitha died in Plympton within 9 months of each other, he nearly 75 years old and she age 71. Both are buried in the Bryant section of Hillcrest Cemetery In Plympton.

Deacon Samuel Bryant Jr. and wife Tabitha's gravestones in Hillcrest Cemetery

Samuel Jr.’s daughter, Lydia, married Consider Fuller and, after Consider’s death in 1759, moved her family to New Gloucester, Maine, where she joined a Shaker community. Her son, Consider Fuller, Jr., married a first cousin and moved to Paris, Maine in 1801, living in a log cabin near his uncle, Solomon Bryant (see below). The Consider Fuller families were later to end up in Woodstock. Another Deacon Samuel’s granddaughter, Jane, moved with her husband to Paris, Maine. Thus, by the turn of the 19th century, we had a nidus of Plympton Bryant’s living in Paris.

Solomon Bryant (1746-1826)

Our 6th GGF Solomon Bryant was the youngest of Deacon Samuel’s and Tabitha’s 11 children who were born over a period of 21 years. Samuel and Tabitha were still having children in their 40’s. 

At age 20, Solomon married 15-year-old Elizabeth Randall Curtis of the prosperous Curtis family in nearby Hanover, Massachusetts and they started a family the same year. 

Records of the First Congregational Church in Hanover show Solomon and Elizabeth were married at the church in 1766 and admitted to full communion by 1767. Their first five children were baptized at the First Congregational. 

Solomon and Elizabeth had four children over the next four years - Elizabeth, our 5th GGM Betsey, Solomon Jr., and Christopher - but their baby making was slowed by Solomon’s service in the Revolution.

A fifth child, Lydia, was born in Hanover during Solomon's Revolution service and another five children were born over the following 16 years - Lydia, Samuel, Susannah, Abigail, Joanna, and Martha - for a total of 10 children. Three were born after the family move to Gray, Maine and the final two in Paris, Maine in 1791 and 1794.

Solomon was among the hotbed of Hanover Revolutionaries, a Minuteman under Captain Turner and other regiments with deployments throughout the war from April 1775 to January 1779 when he was discharged. His enlistment describes him as 5’7” with dark complexion.

Soon after the his war service, Solomon and Elizabeth moved their family to Gray, Maine. The motivation to leave an area where they had long standing family roots is puzzling. Being the 5th son and 11th child in line likely meant there wasn’t much land left for inheritance, but he came from a sea-going family and a shipping community. Being the 11th child with parents in their late 50’s may have meant he was apprenticed out as a teen to someone in Hanover to acquire a trade, perhaps to his future father-in-law, Mr. Curtis. Information in Maine indicates he was a house builder and lumber miller.

In any event, sometime between the birth of daughter Abigail in Gray, Maine in 1787 and the 1790 census, the Bryant family relocated even again inland to Paris, Maine, then known as Plantation Number 4. Solomon was an early settler and one of the first millers in South Paris.

Solomon was active in the Paris community, serving posts of surveyor of lumber, hog reeve, land tax assessor. He and son, Solomon Jr., signed the petition for incorporation of Paris in 1792. In a land purchase in Paris in 1800, he is referred to as a “housewright,” the term for a timber house builder in Colonial times. Another reference to Solomon in History of Paris indicates he was a “millman,” i.e., he ran a saw mill.

Two of Solomon’s sons, Christopher and Solomon, Jr. were the first settlers of Woodstock, Maine, known at that time as Plantation No. 3 until incorporation as a town in 1815. Along with their brother Samuel, who was still a teenager and several brothers-in-law, Christopher and Solomon had the intent to make Woodstock a family settlement. Bryant’s Pond is named after the brothers.

Solomon Sr. and wife Elizabeth moved in 1808 to Woodstock where three sons and several daughters had already settled, but by 1810 the couple returned to Paris and Elizabeth died the same year, age 60. She must have been just worn out.

The 1820 census shows Solomon is head of household living in Paris with a young couple and two children under age 10. He died in 1826, age 80. What a guy!

The burial site of Solomon and Elizabeth in Paris is unknown.

Betsey Bryant (1769-after 1854)

Our 5th GGM, Betsey Bryant was the 2nd child of Solomon and Elizabeth. She would have been about 10 years old when the family moved to Gray, Maine and 19 years old when she became the second wife of our 43-year-old 5th GGF Dr. Peter Brooks. Dr. Brooks had the distinction of abandoning his wife and eight children in Ashburnham, Mass, and the further distinction of fathering an out-of-wedlock son while his wife was pregnant.

Dr. Peter’s proclivity for young women continued with Betsey as she was only 19 years old at marriage and had her first child, our 4th GGM Lucinda Oraing Brooks, seven months later.

Betsey and Dr. Peter lived in Plantation No. 4 (now Paris) from 1788 until moving to Poland in 1792, then known as Bakersfield Plantation. According to Woodstock history, the family lived briefly in Woodstock in 1798, perhaps as part of the Bryant plan for a family settlement, then moved to nearby Greenwood. Dr. Peter died at age 55 in 1800, said to have been caused by inhaling poison from rattlesnakes that he gathered for his medical practice. He is buried in a small cemetery in Mechanic Falls.

Betsey was a 31-year-old widow with four children when Peter died. Four years after Peter’s death, Betsey married Jonathan Fickett, a farmer and widower with four children, in Poland, Maine. They moved to Woodstock in 1818, joining the rest of her Bryant siblings. 

Jonathan and Betsey settled on what was known as the Nute farm in Woodstock. Jonathan’s daughter Betsey by his first wife Judith Cox, was wife of our 3rd GGF Samuel Nute.

Betsey and Dr. Peter’s oldest daughter 4th GGM Lucinda (1788-1839) married Aaron Davis, Jr. and they were grandparents of our 2nd GGM  Lovina Dunn Davis, wife of Orsamus Nute. Betsey's sons, William and Charles, by Peter Brooks were residents of Woodstock. Betsey's youngest child by Peter Brooks, also Betsey, lived throughout her life with mother Betsey and stepfather Jonathan, dying in 1859 with tuberculosis she'd had since a child.

Betsey’s husband, Jonathan, died in 1850 and Betsey’s signature was on court papers as late as 1854 asking to sell part of their land for her support. Other than this we don’t know exactly when Betsey died. Per Libby's notes, Jonathan and Betsey are buried in the Nute-Stevens cemetery in Woodstock. 

Sources:
1. The Bryant Family, Researched by Edna Bryant Cole, online

Woodstock: Our Davis Family, Colonial to Civil War Era

Our Colonial Davises in Gloucester

Our Maine Davis line first showed up in the colonies in 1638 some 30 miles north of Boston at Ipswich, Massachusetts when John Davis appeared in an Ipswich court, perhaps to take his freeman’s oath. 

His actual arrival is speculative, but all agree he came from England during the period of the Great Migration of Puritans (1620-1640). Religious motivation for immigration is highly probable given that his sons and many of the subsequent generations have biblical names, every family seeming to have an Aaron, Moses, Jacob, Joseph, and Mary. All Davises in Gloucester were descendants of John until 1700 when various other Davises came into the area.

Our Davis families lived in Gloucester, nearby Ipswich, and Attleborough, Massachusetts for 4 generations before making the leap to Bakerstown Plantation - now Poland, Maine - and then to Woodstock. 

The Davises and Days were among the 50 settlers living in the Gloucester area in 1650 where the Town Green is now a traffic rotary on Mass Rt 128.  Our Haskells, Browns, Brays and Tybotts arrived in the latter half of the century. They were mainly farmers, leaving it to the next generations to take advantage of fishing and commerce. As the little community grew and spread, in 1718 a Second Parish Church was established to make Sunday meeting attendance easier and it is here Davis births and marriages can be found. 

John¹ Davis  (Abt 1608, England - 1680 Ipswich)  was a young man about 27-30 years old when he came to New England. The date and ship of his immigration is unknown, but likely mid-1630’s.

Ipswich was a Puritan settlement started in 1634 by John Winthrop, son of the Governor John Winthrop of the Winthrop Fleet which brought over thousands of colonists.

Some speculate our John Davis was a follower of Rev. Richard Blinman who brought members of his Welsh congregation to the small fishing village of Marshfield in 1640 and within a year moved to Ipswich, just on the border of Gloucester. Review of NEHGS papers of Rev. Blinman’s congregation, however, does not mention a Davis.

John may have married Alice (1612-1682), identified as Newman, in England before immigration as no Newman families are found in the early settlers of Gloucester. They had two sons who survived to adulthood, James and our 9th GGF Jacob; the daughters are unknown.  

John made a living as a shoemaker and town herdsman with land in both Ipswich and Gloucester. He may also have been a house builder as a record in 1640 shows he was hired as a “joiner” to build a new house for another individual.

John bought a house, barn, orchard, and land near Walker’s Creek in Gloucester in 1656. He was a selectman of Gloucester for several years, twice a constable, and lieutenant of the military company.  In later years, he returned to Ipswich where he died in 1680, age 72.

Jacob² Davis (1640-1685) was born and raised in Gloucester, but lived off and on between Gloucester and Ipswich. He married Elizabeth Bennett (1641-1685)  of Gloucester in 1661 at age 21 and the following year received a grant of land at the head of Long Cove in Gloucester. In 1682 Jacob “and others have the liberty of the stream at the head of Little River to set up a sawmill.”

Jacob may have been a potter as well as a farmer and sawmill owner.

Elizabeth’s parents were both English immigrants who arrived by the 1630’s. She and Jacob had 8 children over a span of 22 years, all born in Gloucester - Jacob (our 8th GGF), Elizabeth, Susanna, Moses, Mary, and Aaron; two sons named John died in infancy.

Jacob was drafted in the town’s quota for King Phillip’s War in 1675, but most draftees hired substitutes to do the actual soldiering.

Jacob and Elizabeth both died young in 1685, age 45 and 44 respectively, seven months apart, most likely from infectious causes. They left six children age 18 and under; only our GGF Jacob Jr. was over 18 and may have had to assume responsibility for some of the children. An article in NEGHR shows at least one of the children, Joseph, 11 years old when their parents died, was placed under the guardianship of brother Moses for the first two years until guardianship was transferred to an uncle. Jacob Sr. left an estate that included a house, upland and meadow, cart yoke, half of a sloop and four canoes, cattle, sheep and swine, and gun, cutlass and belt, so he and Elizabeth had worked hard and done well before their early death.

Jacob³ Davis (1663-1717) was 22 years old when his parents died. Two years later he married Mary Haskell from a nearby farm. He carried on his father’s mill in Gloucester, and also lived back and forth between Gloucester and Ipswich.

Mary’s grandfather - our 9th GGF- William Haskell, immigrated about age 20 from Charlton Musgrove, Somerset, England to Beverly, MA, with his mother, stepfather, and two brothers in 1635.  He was a mariner and fisherman who moved his family to Gloucester in 1645 and purchased land on the west side of Walker’s Creek. Son, William Haskell, Jr., inherited the family farm, but was also a fisherman and owned saw and grist mills in what is now Rockport, MA. He married Mary Walker from a neighboring farm and our Mary Haskell was the first of their 9 children. Both William Sr. and William Jr. left considerable estate. The family home built in the mid 1600’s is on the National Register of Historic Homes and operates as a bed and breakfast.

William Haskell House, Gloucester
built c. 1700

Jacob³ and Mary married in 1687 in Gloucester and had 8 children. Their first, a son Jacob, died soon after birth. The second son, Captain Moses Davis, was a mariner who moved to Rowley, Massachusetts. Third son, William, had the tragic loss of three children within a week’s time in the winter of 1729, very likely from an influenza epidemic. Fifth son, Joseph, apprenticed to a cabinet maker and became a well known furniture maker in Boston.

Jacob acquired land at the head of Little River and built a house and mill by 1712. The house has been variously occupied as a hostel, tavern, home of a descendant of Gloucester slaves, now restored and serves as a homeless shelter. This house is also on the National Register of Historic Places.

Jacob Davis House, Gloucester, 1712

Jacob died age 53 in the winter of 1717, a year of severe influenza epidemic in New England. Mary experienced a lifetime of losses, including a brother who died when she was 13, a son when she was 20, two sisters within 5 days when she was 22, another son when she was 35, death of her father when she was 40, her mother at 47, husband at 48, and a brother at 49. Mary remarried to Ezekiel Woodward with whom Jacob had done business in Gloucester but she, too, died two years later at age 53, leaving 7 minor children, including Aaron⁴.

Aaron⁴ Davis (1704 - abt 1743), 4th son of Jacob³ and our 7th GGF, was born while Jacob and Mary were living in Ipswich. Aaron was 12 years old when his father died.

In 1725, 21 year-old Aaron married 19 year old Phebe Day (1706-1791), descended from the Day settlers of Gloucester. By 1728, the family was living in Attleboro, documented by a sale of land Aaron and his brothers inherited from their father, and by the birth location of their 7 children. Attleboro is a fair distance from Gloucester, about 80 miles south, due west from Plymouth, just north of Fall River. 

Like his father, Aaron⁴ died young at age 39 in Attleboro. Phebe lived to be 71 years, acquiring another three husbands along the way - Benjamin Hoppin, Nehemiah Ward, and John Hoppin - the last when she was 70 years old. 

Phebe married second husband, mariner Benjamin Hoppin, in 1745 and had a son, also Benjamin Hoppin. The elder Benjamin was lost at sea soon after. She died in Providence, RI, in 1791 as Phebe Hoppin. 

The Davis family moves to Poland

Captain Zebulon⁵ Davis (1733-1820), the eldest son of Aaron⁴ and Phebe, was 9 years old at his father’s death. His mother remarried in Attleborough in 1745 and Zebulon’s guardianship was assigned by Essex County court in 1748 to Abner Day (cordswainer), Ezekial Woodward (shoreman), both of Gloucester, and Joseph Marshall of Ipswich. Ezekial's son, Davis Woodward, also moved to Poland Maine, and the Day family were early settlers of New Gloucester, Maine (not to be confused with Gloucester, MA) as well as a pioneering family of Woodstock.

Several of Aaron and Phebe’s children may have been taken into Gloucester families as Zebulon’s brother, Aaron, was living in Gloucester at the time of the Revolution and fought at Bunker Hill with a company of Essex men, “by the rail fence, in the thick of fight all day covered only by scattering trees, they poured the most destructive volleys on the enemy.” Zebulon’s youngest brother, Timothy, was a shipmaster who drowned in the Little River in 1769 at age 27 when his boat upset.

Apprenticed into sea faring families, Zebulon took up the mariner’s life. At 18, he married Mary Bray (1730 - ) from the Gloucester Bray family in the Second Parish and their 7 children were all born in Gloucester.

Sometime between 1768 and 1776, Captain Zebulon gave up the sea and moved his family to Bakerstown Plantation, Maine, a wilderness at the time. Two sons remained behind in Gloucester - Eliphalet who was successful in trading and commerce, and Zebulon Jr.  Young Zebulon Jr. served in the Revolution in 1776 while still in Gloucester, and soon after removed to Bakerstown Plantation in the Minot area with a fellow soldier. 

The area of Bakerstown Plantation that is now Poland began to settle in 1767, and at the 1790 census there were still only 7 permanent settlers here. One of these 7 families was Zebulon’s. 

The whole of Bakerstown Plantation had 217 households in the 1790 census. Bakerstown was incorporated in 1795 as Poland, but various towns were set off over the next 100 years, including Minot, Mechanic Falls, and part of Auburn. The entire area of Bakerstown/Poland was in Cumberland County until it became part of Androscoggin County in 1854. 

On July 21, 1776, Zebulon and 21 other male Bakerstown settlers signed an agreement setting up a town militia to serve in the American Revolution. 

History of Poland states Zebulon Sr. was held prisoner and endured suffering and hardship confined at Halifax by the British, but corroborating evidence is not available. He was a Captain in the Bakerstown Company of militia assigned to Isaac Parsons’ nearby New Gloucester regiment from at least 1781-1786. That he was in the militia or naval service and captured in these intervening years is likely, but not documented other than in the history of Poland. He died in 1820 before Revolution pensions were available to other than disabled Revolution veterans.

Three sons, Zebulon, Eliphalet, and our 6th GGF, Aaron, also served in the Revolution.  Zebulon Jr. served 9 months as a drummer in 1776, assigned to protect the Gloucester coast. He married the same year, and moved to Minot, ME. Eliphalet served 3 years from 1777-1780. Aaron was in the Bakerstown militia of which his father was Captain.

First wife Mary died sometime after the birth of her last child in 1766 and 1779. Zebulon married second time around 1779, widow Hannah Sawyer Marble, and started a second family of an additional 3 children.

The 1790 census shows Zebulon, 2 males under 16, and 2 free white females living in Bakerstown Plantation.

Zebulon and Mary’s children

• Zebulon, Jr. (1753-1838) married Tryphosa Herrick in Gloucester as soon as he finished his Revolution service, and moved to Minot, Maine. They had 7 children, all born in Bakerstown Plantation (Minot), one of whom was named Zebulon (1785 - ). His son, Benjamin, served in the War of 1812.

• Moses (1755-1841), moved to New Gloucester, then to Bakertown, lived on Pigeon Hill (Mechanic Falls) and married Olive Bodwell at age 24. They had two children, but she died within a couple years. At age 33, he married 15 year old Deborah Marble from nearby New Gloucester, Maine, and they had an additional 9 children.

• Eliphalet (1756-1804) was born, raised, and died in Gloucester. He served as a drummer in the Revolution, but subsequently enlisted in the Continental Army and rose to the rank of General according to History of Gloucester. Eliphalet settled in Harbor Parish of Gloucester where he kept a shop and engaged in foreign commerce. He married 16 year old Hannah Somes at age 23, and they had at least 8 children.

• Aaron⁶ Davis (1757-1837), our 5th GGF, married Thankful Strout.

• Molle  “Mary Polly” Davis (1761-1820) married Joshua Dunn of Bakerstown who served in the Revolution. Joshua enlisted at Falmouth in 1776 as a 15 year old and served in New York City at the time Washington lost to the British. Joshua and Molle were married in 1783 by Isaac Parsons in nearby New Gloucester under whom Molle’s father served in the Revolution. Joshua gave the name of “The Empire” to the area of Poland in which he lived. He was described as  “possessing a fine physique, and a noted wit and practical joker.” Molle and Joshua had 8 children born in Poland over a period of 19 years. She died at age 43, three years after the birth of her last child.

• William (1763-1845) was born in Gloucester and still a child when the family moved to Poland. In 1786, he married step-sister Hannah Marble, a skilled midwife, and they had 5 children, one of whom was named Zebulon. William lived on Pigeon Hill, but moved in with his father and stepmother/mother-in-law in 1791 when he was 28 years old. He built another house on the property the following year to accommodate the large family. William had 4 young children; step-mother Hannah Sawyer Marble and father Zebulon had 3 young children.  Total = 11 people. Needed a bigger house!

Altogether, Zebulon Sr. and Mary had 48 grandchildren. Among these were five Pollys, four each Williams, Eliphalets, and Benjamins; and two each Aarons and Zebulons, almost all of whom lived in the Poland, Minot, Woodstock area. Imagine Christmas.

Zebulon died in Poland in 1820, age 87. What a life!

And on to Woodstock . . .

Aaron⁶ Davis (1757-1837), fourth son of Zebulon and Mary, was born and lived in Gloucester until his early teens when Zebulon moved the family to Bakerstown Plantation. Aaron married Thankful Strout (1757-1825) in 1784, both age 27. Thankful was from the prominent seafaring Strout family of Gloucester. Even starting their family at relatively late ages, Aaron and Thankful managed to have 11 children over a period of 22 years. According to Lapham’s Woodstock history, all were born in Poland, I verified the births in early vital records of Poland as Thankful’s age of 50 at the last birth is unusual.

Aaron signed the 1776 Bakerstown Agreement establishing a militia and served as a private in the regiment commanded by his father, Zebulon. Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors indicates he was on the disastrous Penobscot expedition of 1779.

Aaron and Thankful's children

• Hannah (1785-1860), married farmer William Faunce of Paris in 1804 in Hebron, ME, died age 75, in Oxford, ME; 11 children.

• Aaron⁷, Jr.,  (1786-1870), our 4th GGF married Lucinda Oraing Brooks.

• Thankful (1788-1863), married lumberman Robert Stockman; at least 2 children.

• Sally (1791-1885), married farmer Seth Curtis, sergeant in War of 1812; they lived in Woodstock until his later years, then moved to Paris; 4 children.

• *Polly (1792-1873), married Samuel Nute; 3rd step-great aunt to the Nute family; see below.

• Phebe (1795-1835), died age 40, unmarried, likely lived with Aaron and Thankful as an “old maid.”

• Benjamin (1797-1870), married Ruhamah Chase; 9 children.

• Eliphalet (1799-), married Lydia Lurvey; children and death date unknown.

• Eliza (1801-), married Richard Lurvey who was a representative to the state legislature in 1836.

• Nehemiah Strout Davis (1804-1832), never married, died in Woodstock a age 28. His estate was appraised by brothers-in law, Seth Curtis and Samuel Nute, and consisted of $260, a bridle, a 3 year old colt, and wearing apparel.

• Julia Marie (1807-1887), married Benjamin Stephens (1807-1890), son of our 4th GGP’s Captain Samuel Stephens and Emma Swan, and brother to Jane Stephens, our 3rd GGM who married Joseph Davis, son of Julia’s brother and our GGF Aaron⁷. 

___________________________________________________________________________________________

*Polly Davis ( 1792-1873): Polly, was the 2nd wife of our 3GGF Samuel Nute (1792-1855). Samuel’s first wife died at a young age, leaving him 4 young children; a year later he married Polly who was also in her mid-30’s and she raised the children - including our Orsamus - but they had no children of their own. Samuel died in Woodstock at age 62, and in 1860 she was living with Orsamus and his first wife, Emma Stevens. Emma died in 1860, and Orsamus took a second wife, Lovena Dunn Davis, our 2nd great-grandmother and grand daughter of Aaron⁵ Davis, Polly’s father. That is to say, Polly was the great-aunt of Lovina. In any event, Orsamus and Lovina took Polly with them when they moved to Boston in 1862 and she died there at age 73, outliving Samuel by 18 years. Pretty confusing, eh?

__________________________________________________________________________________________

Davis memorial in Curtis Hill Cemetery, Woodstock
Aaron Davis and wife Thankful Strout

Thankful died age 68 in 1825, leaving Aaron a widower for 12 years. Aaron applied for and was granted a Revolution pension in 1832, age 72, and died five years later. They are both buried in Curtis Hill Cemetery, a beautiful little cemetery on a hill overlooking Woodstock.

Aaron Davis⁷ (1786-1870), like the rest of his sibs, was born in Poland, and we know he was living in Woodstock by 1811 as his son, Joseph, was born here. As a private in the War of 1812, he was ordered to the defense of Portland in September 1814. History of Poland notes Aaron Jr. was in Woodstock before his father who arrived by 1815, and both Aarons were at a Woodstock town meeting in 1815.

Aaron married Lucinda Oraing Brooks, daughter of our 5th GGP’s Dr. Peter Brooks and Betsey Bryant, before 1809. They had 11 children between the years 1809 - 1830. Lucinda died in 1839 at the age of 52, and Aaron married 43 year old Eliza Dudley in 1843. 

Aaron's and Lucinda’s children:

• Cynthia (1809-1887) married shoemaker Alexander Bryant, grandson of our 5th GGF Solomon Bryant, and they had 11 children.

• Joseph Davis⁸ (1811-1886), our 3rd GGF, married Jane Stephens (1812-1893).

• Stephen Denning Davis (1813-1864) was a boot  maker in Ashland, MA, three times married per record at his third marriage. His first wife, Abigail, was “injured at a tent meeting in the rage of Millerism in 1843. During the meeting someone threw a hemlock knot at the minister and it struck Mrs. Davis. The injury finally resulted in her death ,” per Libby notes. He moved the family to Ashland, Massachusetts where he died age 51 from a “canker rash” and scarlet fever.

• Charles Brooks (1815 - 1884), farmer, married Harriet Nute (1818-1899), daughter of our 3rd GGP’s Samuel Nute and Betsey Fickett. They had 6 children. Charles and Harriet were living in Woodstock through the 1870 census. By 1880 they were living in Paris and are both buried in South Paris.

• Phebe (1817 - after 1855) married Joseph Cotton and had 4 children.

• Lorenzo (1820 - 1902), a farmer, married Eleanor Packard in Woodstock. She died from tuberculosis while they were living in Ashland, MA, in 1856. He married second Laura Upton in Ashland, MA, in 1857 and returned to live in Woodstock. He died from a stroke at age 84 in Auburn, ME. 

• Betsey (1821 - 1898) married shoemaker Aaron Thurlow and they lived in Paris. She died in Mechanic Falls with heart disease in 1898.

• Thankful (1823 - ) has left no footprints.

• Aaron (1825-1870), married Lucy Fickett; died age 44 from consumption within a month of his father’s death and his land was sold at auction to pay debts. Lucy took up nursing and lived with her mother in Paris to support herself and her daughter.

• Seth C. (1828 - 1902), carpenter and farmer, married Almira Herrick; died age 73 in Auburn, ME, from “gastric catarrh,” stomach gastritis, perhaps a bleeding ulcer.

• Lucinda ( 1830 -) lived with her father until his death in 1870. Two years later at age 50, she married 80 year old farmer, Jeremiah Curtis, from Rumford.

According to  the 1850 census, 62 yr old Aaron, 50 yr old Eliza, 27 yr old Betsey, 25 yr old Aaron, 23 yr old Seth, and 20 yr old Lucinda Davis are living in the family home. Son, Joseph, is living on the farm next door. Eliza died before 1854 when intentions to marry third wife Nancy H. Stephens of Paris were published, likely a widow so we do not know her birth surname. In any event, the 1860 census shows Aaron is a 74 year old “gentleman” living with only 65 yr old Nancy. Aaron died in Woodstock, age 84, in March 1870 from a stroke and his son, 40 year old Aaron, died from tuberculosis the following month.

Aaron Davis Jr. and wife Lucinda

Nute Stephens Cemetery, Woodstock

In the background is the Nute obelisk and row of Nute headstones

Joseph⁸ Davis (1811-1886), our 3rd GGF and oldest son of Aaron and Lucinda, grew up on the Davis farm in South Woodstock and married Jane Stephens, daughter of Captain Samuel Stephens and Emma Swan. Joseph was a farmer and had a saw mill with his brother, Seth, on a brook in Woodstock. Joseph and Jane had 5 children, all born in Woodstock, and the oldest married into our Nute line. 

Joseph's and Jane's children

• Lovina⁹ Dunn Davis (1835-1880) married Orsamus Nute.

• Joseph Henry (1837-1908) enlisted in the Maine 23rd Infantry Regiment in 1862 and went with his regiment to Washington during the Civil War, assigned to guarding the forts of the upper Potomac, but never under fire. He married Juliett Irish and lived out his years in Woodstock as a farmer until 71 years of age.

• Antonett Davis (1839-1922) married Charles Chase and lived in Paris where he was a farmer.

• Jane Lurvey Davis (1842 -) was 18 years old living at home in 1860 but left no further footprints.

• William Stephens Davis (1847-1922), farmer, married Georgianna Irish. He died age 74 with influenza and parkinsonism.

Joseph Davis and Jane Robbins Stephens are both buried in South Woodstock Cemetery

South Woodstock Cemetery

Twenty five year-old Lovina⁹ married 41 year-old Orsamus Nute (1820-1907), a widower with 5 children, in 1861. In the 1860 census she was living at home with her parents, working as a teacher, and this may have been her connection to Orsamus, also a teacher in Woodstock. Lovina and Orsamus had another 6 children, including our GGF Joseph¹⁰ Nute. The first two, including Joseph, were born in Woodstock. The last four were born in Boston but two of these did not survive infancy. She died with pericarditis at age 45. Lovina and Orsamus are both buried in the Nute Stephens cemetery in Woodstock. 

Nute momument and markers
Nute-Stephens Cemetery
Woodstock, Maine

Even though Lovina died in Boston and Orsamus in Monsey, New York, they both came home to Woodstock to be buried. Orsamus made his fortune in Boston and built an obelisk memorial for the Nute family in the Nute Stephens Cemetery. Along with Orsamus are buried,

Samuel Nute (1792-1855), his father

Betsey Fickett (1794-1826), Samuel’s first wife

Polly Davis (1792-1873), Samuel’s second wife and daughter of Aaron⁷ Davis, Jr.

Rebecca Wentworth (1765-1828), Samuel’s mother and Orsamus’ grandmother

Emma Stephens, (1822-1860), Orsamus’ first wife

Lovina⁹ Dunn Davis( 1835-1880) Orsamus’ second wife

Children of Orsamus and 1st wife Emma

     Emma F, died in infancy, 1857

     Samuel, died age 20, 1864

     Ruth Anna, unmarried, died in 1880, age 28, in Boston 

Children of Orsamus and Lovina

     Ernest, died in infancy, 1868

     Frankie, died in infancy, 1870

We have two hundred fifty years of history with our American Davis family, through wars, hard times, huge families, tragic losses, all with that New England work and survival ethic to become the hardy "stock" of Woodstock. They funneled from Gloucester, up through Maine and into the wilderness, and finally returning to "civilization" in Boston.

Woodstock: The Remarkable Captain Samuel Stephens, Mayflower descendant and son of a Revolutionary

 Captain Samuel Stephens and Emma Swan, our 4th great-grandparents, were relative latecomers to Woodstock with their arrival in Woodstock around 1815.

Samuel Stephens in Plymouth, Massachusetts

Samuel was born to Edward Stephens and Mayflower descendant Phoebe Harlow in Plymouth, Massachusetts. 

Birth and death records are not available for Samuel but his gravestone indicates he died at age 90 in 1856, which puts his birth at about 1766. A 1913 SAR application by a great-grandson, Harold Ellsworth Stevens, MD, in Lewiston, ME, gives a birth date of September 16, 1768, but the source of that date is unclear unless from family records. Indeed, the Revolutionary War pension application of his brother, William, makes reference to a family Bible with birth dates.

Both parents were in their 40's when Samuel was born, the 9th of ten children. Three of the 10 died young - a brother at age 3 before Samuel was born, and two sisters at ages 21 and 27.

Samuel grew up in a revolutionary age and family. When but eight years old, his father and three brothers marched with a Plympton military company to nearby Marshfield on April 19, 1775, the day of the Lexington alarm. While surrounding areas were revolutionary bent, Marshfield was a hotbed of Loyalists. Brother William spent 7 months in the young colonial Navy on the brigantine Hazard in 1777-78.

Samuel had several losses before he turned 22 with the death of an older sister in 1786, his mother in 1787, father in 1788, and another sister in 1791.

The earliest record of Samuel occurs with his 1788 marriage to a young woman from the neighboring farm, Desire Harlow, just months after his father’s death. Their first child, Samuel Jr., was born 7 months after the marriage. They had another two children by 1798, the year Samuel purchased a lot in Paris, Maine.

Samuel is again mentioned in his father’s probate papers in 1789. Although his father owned significant land in the Plympton/Plymouth/Marshfield area, he died insolvent and his land was sold off to his sons and sons-in-law to cover his debts. A small, but nice parcel at Hobbs Hole went to 21 year-old Samuel, perhaps made possible with money from the his new wife’s family. Farming soil in Plymouth was acidic, porous, and downright poor for farming except for a few patches, one of these being Hobbs Hole, “a 15 minute walk from Burial Hill in Plymouth.” Even with a workable piece of land, Samuel’s attention turned to other opportunities in the expanding colonies.

Samuel and Desire in Paris (great name for a movie)

Still a young man at age 31, Samuel and Desire and children joined a host of others migrating from the Plymouth, Plympton, and Marshfield areas to inland Maine in the years after the Revolution. Samuel’s brother, Sylvanus, became an early resident of nearby Sumner although it’s not clear when he arrived.

We know Samuel purchased the 100 acre “Center lot” in Paris, Maine, in 1798, from Lemuel Perham and the family finally traveled the 188 miles from Plymouth to Woodstock in 1800. Tragically, Desire died in 1801, leaving Samuel with three young children. Samuel married our 4th great-grandmother, Emma Swan, the following year.

Emma’s father, William Swan, a Revolution soldier who fought at Bunker Hill, moved his family to Paris by 1790 and was an early settler of Woodstock by 1802, about the time Emma married our Samuel in Paris.

Samuel had another six children with second wife Emma. Desire must still have been on his mind as their first child was named Jesse Harlow Stephens. One of their children, Oren, died young, perhaps only two years old.

Samuel took an active role in the early Paris community. He and another Paris resident, Nicholas Smith, built a grist mill on Smith Brook. He was on the committee to build a Baptist Church in the town, treasurer for the town 1803-04, and selectman/assessor in 1806 and 1810. He cast musket balls to arm the town's War of 1812 militia.

Samuel and Emma in Woodstock

By 1815, Samuel once more moved his family, this time to Woodstock and - again - he was a prominent member in the community. He was a Selectman in 1817 and Overseer of the Poor in 1818. At a town meeting in 1817, “old Mrs. Lucy Swan was set up at auction and struck off to Samuel Stephens at $1.09/week.” The town handled their old folk in those days by auctioning off care to the lowest bidder. Old Lucy, indeed, was Emma’s mother, our 5th GGM; she died the following year. 

After moving to Woodstock, Samuel bought a grist mill afterwards known as the Captain Stephens Mill, and businesses built up around the area, including a blacksmith shop, hotel, and a circus ground. Stephens Mills was the business center of Woodstock for several years. The unreliable water source allowed the mill to operate only intermittently and it was dismantled in 1834.  

Woodstock Corner about 1830, from Woodstock Chamber of Commerce

Samuel and Emma built a beautiful home that was the last of the original Stephens Mills settlement when it burned down in 1968.

Captain Samuel Stephens house, built in 1815, photo in 1955, from Stephens Mills website

School areas were redistricted in 1820 and Samuel's farm was in the First district along with the Swan and Bryant families, also grandparent ancestors.

Samuel served two terms in the Maine legislature, elected in 1827 and 1831 to represent Woodstock which meant trips to Portland until the state capital was moved to Augusta in 1832. In 1845, he voted with the minority in favor of liquor licenses in Woodstock.  Most of the town, including another GGF Orsamus Nute, voted for prohibition.

Samuel's oldest son, also Samuel, died tragically at age 43, crushed in a mill accident in Woodstock in 1832, and wife Emma died 4 years later, leaving Samuel a widower for the next twenty years. His oldest son by Emma, Jesse Harlow Stephens, a Methodist minister, hung himself in 1843, reportedly influenced by Millerism.*

*William Miller developed a national following for preaching the Second Coming of Christ would occur sometime in 1843.

In 1850, eighty-two year old Samuel was living with Sam Jr.'s widow and 36 year-old spinster daughter, Mary. He died in 1856 at the age of 90.

Samuel was a "highly respected citizen," clearly involved in the community and did well for himself, particularly given his father's insolvency and no inheritance from the family.  In addition to his property and home, probate inventory showed he had two cows, 10 sheep, a ton of hay, and 5 bushels of potatoes and turnips each, among other sundry things. One of the appraisers of his estate was our Orsamus Nute.

Samuel's family:                                                                                                                                   

Desire Harlow, 1st wife, died in Paris, age 32

• Samuel Stephens, Jr. (1789-1832), private, War of 1812; m. Mayflower descendant Elizabeth Doten; killed in mill accident at age 43, 2 children.
• Captain Eleazer Stephens (1792-1852), War of 1812 Navy veteran; m. Nancy Stevens, 5 children.
• Desire Stephens (1798-1869), m. Artemus Felt, 8 children.

Emma Swan, 2nd wife, died in Woodstock, age 66

• Jesse Harlow Stephens (1802-1843), m. Abigail Lurvey, 5 children; Methodist minister, hanged himself at age 41. 
• Benjamin Stephens (1807-1890), m. Julia Maria Davis; 5 children; son Orin became a doctor.
• Orin Stephens (1809 - ), died young, possibly in 1811.
• Jane Stephens (1812-1893), m. Joseph Davis; 5 children; daughter Lovina Dunn Davis married our Orsamus Nute.
• Mary Stephens (1815 - died after 1870), unmarried, lived with father until he died, then on the "town farm."

In total, Captain Samuel had 30 grandchildren.

Samuel, Emma, and Samuel Jr. are buried in Curtis Hill Cemetery. Many other Stephens are buried in the Nute-Stephens cemetery, including son Benjamin and his family, and there appears to have been a close connection between the Nute and Stephens families.

The Mystery of Captain Samuel Stephens 

Paris and Woodstock town histories often refer to Samuel as Captain Stephens even when the rank of other Revolution veterans in these towns is rarely mentioned. The source of Samuel's captainship is not documented from the Revolution, nor is he listed as one of the Paris men training for the War of 1812.

The Woodstock Samuel Stephens has been generally accepted as a Revolution privateer:

• From Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors: Samuel Stevens, Gloucester. Descriptive list of officers and crew of the ship “America” (privateer), commanded by Captain John Somes, sworn to in Suffolk Co., June 8, 1780; age 14 yrs; stature 3’10 “; residence Gloucester.
• Maine Veterans Cemetery Records documents the same information under his name, associating the information with our Samuel’s gravestone, and citing Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors as the source information.
• His gravestone has an American Revolution veteran marker.
• Stephens Mills website sources the Woodstock Samuel Stephens as this young Gloucester teen.

Here are the problems with this claim:

• There is no doubt our Samuel is from Plymouth, and not Gloucester. Paris and Woodstock town histories refer to Samuel as being from Plymouth, he married a young woman from the Plymouth Harlow family, he is listed in the Plymouth Edward Stephens probate papers, and brother Sylvanus from Plymouth lived in nearby Sumner.
• Gloucester had an extensive Stevens family headed by William Stevens, famed as a master ship carpenter in the 1600s, and rampant with Samuel named offspring. They spell their name Stevens, whereas our Plymouth family were Stephens.
• If his gravestone is correct, Samuel would have been 12 and not 14 years old at the time this young sailor took to sea harassing the British.
• The Gloucester teen was 3’10” tall and would have had to grow another 12” to be out of the category of dwarfism. American Revolution men were tall, averaging three inches taller than the British soldiers. An average American adult male would have been 5’8” in those days, about an inch less than the contemporary American male. If we extrapolate to 14 year old boys of that era, an average Revolution era 14 yr old boy would be about 5’3 1/2”. A 3’10” fourteen year old sailor would have stood out, so much so that the stat got put into the listing in Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors.

In order for our Woodstock Samuel to be the Gloucester teen privateer, he would have had to make his way 75 miles north from Plymouth to Gloucester by age 14, back to Plymouth before age 20 to impregnate and marry the Plymouth Desire Harlow, and grow another two feet.

More likely, the connection between the Woodstock Captain Samuel Stephens and Gloucester privateer is incorrect. Quite possibly, our Samuel attained his Captainship post-Revolution in the local militia, following the footsteps of his Revolution father and brothers, rising up the ranks as he seemed to do most of his life. Even more likely, he was in the seafaring business in Plymouth as many in the area were wont with poor farming quality in the area. He was set with the family house on the property at Hobbs Hole and until age 30 captained his own boat. This would explain why he continued to use the title Captain in later life when other Revolution veterans in the Woodstock/Paris did not. As in, aye, aye Captain.

Next up, The Stephens family before Woodstock . . .

Sources:
The Old Village of Woodstock, Maine, 1808-1840-50, Woodstock Chamber of Commerce.

A History of Buckfield, Oxford County, Maine from the earliest explorations to the close of the year 1900.
History of Woodstock, Me. : with family sketches and an appendix, William Berry Lapham, 1882.

History of Paris, Maine, from its settlement to 1880, William Berry Lapham, 1884.
History of the town of Gloucester, Cape Ann : including the town of Rockport, Babson, 1860.

Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors of the Revolutionary War
Woodstock Cemeteries, compiled  by Joyce Howe

Stephens Mills webside, http://www.stephensmills.net/