Our Ancestral Packards

Our family had six, maybe seven, generations of Packards in New England before the surname disappeared by marriage, i.e., Harriet Packard to George Studley. The Packard immigrant arrived in Massachusetts in 1638 and lived in Hingham, Weymouth, and then Bridgewater, Massachusetts. One, possibly two, linking generations cannot be identified and we next pick up our Packard line in Easton with Joseph, married to Hannah Manley. Their son, Samuel, married Bethiah Waters, a descendant of William Bradford, Mayflower passenger and governor of the Plymouth Colony. This couple set off in their 20s on a circuitous journey that landed them in Thomaston, Maine. Their son, another Samuel, married Harriet Young who was born on Mantinicus, a remote island off the coast of Maine. Their daughter, another Harriet, married George Studley, a carpenter and Civil War soldier who fought major battles including Gettysburg. Hence, the middle name of our grandmother, Alice Packard Studley. All generations down through the Samuels were landowners and farmers. 

The Packard name derives from Middle English pak(e) ‘pack bundle’ + the Anglo-Norman French pejorative suffix -"ard" = packard, probably a derogatory occupational name for a peddler.

Our Packard family story begins in Stonham Aspal in Suffolk County, England with the 1612 birth of Samuel Packard, believed to be the third son of George Packard (1575-1623), a yeoman, and his wife, Mary Wyther (1574-1652). Samuel and his wife Elizabeth are credited as progenitors of most of the Packards in the United States, and among their descendants are those of the Packard automobile and Hewlett-Packard.

Suffolk County lies in the what was the Kingdom of East Anglia formed in the 6th c. as an Anglo-Saxon settlement, conquered by the Danish Vikings in the 9th c., and incorporated into the kingdom of England under Edward I in the 13th c. Hence, part of our family Viking DNA. And, actually, Edward is also a grandfather ancestor through our New Hampshire 10th GGM, Rose Stoughton.

Samuel Packard (1605-1684) and Elizabeth

The Packard family lived in Stonham Asphal on the Red House Farm whose 14th c. homestead, with additions, is still standing and occupied. The church at Stonham Aspen where Samuel was baptized also still stands and has records of Samuel’s baptism.

Samuel and Elizabeth, last name unknown, married in 1634 and had a child, Mary, in 1637 while still in Stonham. As noted in the ship’s manifest, the family may have been living in Wyndham in Norfolk County prior to immigration. The mid-1630s was a period of economic depression and religious dissent in England. 

They joined over 20,000 English seeking religious freedom and economic opportunity in the 1630-1643 “Great Migration” to Massachusetts Bay Colony. Not a first-born son, Samuel may have held hope for land in the New World as the English tradition of primogeniture would have left him landless. For perspective, the Boston settlement had its beginning in 1630 when Winthrop’s eleven ships landed in the harbor.

In June 1638, the the family sailed out of Ipswich, England, about a hundred miles north of London, bound for Boston on the ship Diligent with little Mary not more than a year old. The 133 passengers were under the leadership of a minister, Robert Peck, so Samuel and Elizabeth may have had both religious and economic motivations. 

The Diligent passengers settled in Hingham, Massachusetts, where Samuel received a land grant. Just three years earlier, Hingham had been settled by English religious-dissenting colonists on land belonging to the indigenous Wampanoag without bothering to buy the land for another three decades.

Samuel and Elizabeth had another eleven children in Hingham between 1639 and 1652 before their move five miles south to Weymouth sometime between 1652 and 1654. Samuel is listed as a Weymouth selectman, i.e., like being on today’s town council. 

The effect on the family of several houses being burnt in Weymouth by local Indians in 1663 is unclear, but by 1664, 59 year-old Samuel and Elizabeth moved another ten miles south to an area near Town River now West Bridgewater. Samuel is listed as a Constable and there had another two children. He was licensed to keep an “ordinary” in 1671; i.e., a pub for travelers.

Historically, Plymouth Colony and Massachusetts Bay Colony were two separate entities that merged in 1691 to form the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Bridgewater was the first interior settlement of Plymouth Colony starting in 1650. Many came from Duxbury, but other settlements as well. Settlers were given six acres on each side of the Nippenicket in close proximity for mutual protection.

Somewhere in my notes I have that Samuel bought land in the Nippenicket area from local Indians, presumably located close to Lake Nippenicket in West Bridgewater.

Altogether, Samuel and Elizabeth had 14 children, six sons and eight daughters, over a span of 20 years. Two girls died young. His 1684 will left 370 acres and numerous meadows to four sons (Samuel, Jr., Zaccheus, John, and Nathaniel) and grandsons. Sons not named in his will were Thomas and Israel, presumably deceased by 1684.

Samuel and Elizabeth’s children and baptismal birthdates:

1. Mary, c. 1637
2. Elizabeth, c. 1646
3. Samuel, Jr. c. 1641.
4. Hannah, c. 1643
5. Israel, c. 1645, not an heir in his father’s will, so presumed deceased by 1684, possibly in 1675-76 Indian Wars.
6. Jael, c.1647
7. Deborah, c. 1648
8. Zaccheus, c. 1650

9.   and 10. Jane and Abigail, c. 1651, possibly twins who died young

11. Deliverance, c. 1652

12. Thomas, c. 1653

13. John, b. 20 July 1655, the only one who has a birth record

14. Nathaniel, c. 1657 

Samuel’s will provided well for Elizabeth, including land, use of the house, all his goods and cattle, forty pounds annually, and the ever important featherbed. Nevertheless, Elizabeth - in her 70s, well off, veteran of 14 pregnancies and child rearing - remarried within about a year to John Washburn of Bridgewater. He died about 1-2 years later and his will interestingly notes he owed her two pounds and ten shillings which he agreed to return.

Widowed a second time, Elizabeth herself died sometime after 1702 in Bridgewater, Massachusetts. Estimates are she had about 45 grandchildren.

Samuel’s childhood red brick, six bedroom farmhouse with 7 acres in Stoneham-Asphal was up for sale in 2012 for $875,000. Google for photos of the interior.

Missing generation(s)

The generational links between immigrant Hingham/Weymouth/Bridgewater Samuel (1605-1684) and 5th GGF Joseph Packard (1705-1777) are unproved in spite of various suppositions in Ancestry.

Joseph Packard and Hannah Manley, 5th GGPs

From the Karle Packard’s research published in Packard’s Progress, 1977, several Joseph Packards lived in the Bridgewater vicinity in the early 18th century. Our line descends from Joseph Packard (c. 1705-1777) whose first documentation is a marriage in nearby Easton. No direct evidence of his parentage has been located.

Joseph’s birthplace would have been either Bridgewater or Easton with an estimated birth year 1705 which would make him about 24 years old when he married a young widow, Hannah Manley (1711-1790). The original marriage record indicates they were “both of Easton.” Other than a cousin, Hannah Packard Briggs, there were no other Packards in the Easton area at that time, so no clues as to who might be Joseph’s parents.

Easton abuts Bridgewater 30 miles almost due south of downtown Boston and WNW inland 30 miles from Plymouth. These days, it would be part of the greater Boston area.

Hannah’s grandfather, William Manley, (abt. 1645-1717) was likely the Manley immigrant and had been living in Weymouth as early as 1675 when a marriage was recorded. An early settler in that part of Easton known as the North Purchase, William is described as a “squatter” as he and six other families were already living on their land in 1694 when lot divisions were made. He split his lot with Thomas Phillips, another guy from Weymouth. Five children later, his young wife died, perhaps from complications related to childbirth. The fourth child, 6th GGF Nathaniel (1684-1753), and Hannah Leonard (1679-1753) were Hannah’s parents. They died within a day of each other in April 1753. Infectious disease? It was a bad year for influenza and smallpox in that area.

Joseph and Hannah had ten children between 1730 and 1751:

5 sons - Joseph Jr., John, Benjamin, James, and Samuel (1751-1810), our 4th GGF.

5 daughters - Elizabeth, Hannah, Zeruiah, Mary, and Mehitable.

The fighting five, Joseph and Hannah’s military sons

• Joseph, Jr., (1730-1805) enlisted August 1754 with the colonial militia in the French and Indian War in Capt Perry's Company that went to Nova Scotia to “remove French encroachments.” The battalion laid siege and accepted the surrender of the French at Fort Beauséjour, a star shaped fort at the narrow neck of land between Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. After his brother, John, died at Ticonderoga in 1758 at the Battle of the Carillon, Joseph and two Manley cousins were part of the British forces that drove the remaining French from Fort Ticonderoga in July 1759. Joseph Jr.’s son, Nathaniel, died in 1775 during the siege of Boston. Joseph’s children were all born in Easton and by the 1790 census the family was living in Westmoreland, New Hampshire. This is important as it may have been a later stopping off point for his brother SamueI. Surry and Westmoreland are but 13 miles apart in Cheshire County. More on that later.

• John (1738-1758) also enlisted with the colonial forces in the French and Indian War and was at the Battle of Fort Carillon (Ticonderoga) in July 1758 when 16,000 British attempted a frontal assault against 4,000 French just outside the fort, and were badly beaten. Unfortunately, 20 year-old John was among the casualties. The French later abandoned the fort and John’s brother was among those who returned the following year and removed the remaining French.

• Benjamin (1742-1825) married Azenath Bradford Waters, a great-granddaughter of William Bradford, Mayflower passenger and Governor of the Plymouth Colony. She was already twice widowed with only one child by age twenty seven and living in Stoughton. That child, Bethiah Waters, married Benjamin’s youngest brother, our 4th GGF, Samuel. In any event, Benjamin was a Minuteman from Stoughton in Captain William Briggs Company who responded to the alarm from Concord and Lexington on April 19, 1775. He signed up to serve in the Continental Army in May 1782 as the war was winding down. The British surrendered at Yorktown in 1781, but some didn’t get the memo and fighting didn't stop until 1783. Even so, Benjamin was not likely involved in further skirmishes.

• James (1750-1836) served several tours of duty during the Revolution. He was 83 years old when he applied for a pension in which he states “I was never drafted, I always enlisted voluntarily whenever I was called out to serve in the defense of my country.” He was a Minuteman who responded along with Benjamin to the Lexington alarm on the infamous April 19, and marched to Roxbury where he stayed for 11 days, “I saw General Washington at Roxbury and General Putnam when I was at Castle Island”. He also responded to the invasion of the British in Rhode Island, serving up to eight months at a time.
• 4th GGF Samuel (1751-c 1810) had service in the Revolution resistance against the British who had taken Newport, including a “secret expedition." Samuel, brother James, and a cousin Reuben Manley were in church at the Easton meetinghouse on December 8, 1776 when a horseman galloped up and announced the British had landed in Newport, RI, that everyone must march immediately to oppose their progress. Before the day was over, the Easton men were off to confront General Clinton for a fight that didn’t happen, instead just a series of skirmishes until the final battle in 1778. The guys remained on alert to help Rhode Island for the next three years. Samuel and brother James were part of Captain Shaw’s company for the “secret expedition” in September 1777 to attempt to dislodge the British from Rhode Island, if gathering 9000 men can be considered secret. Delays and inefficiencies led to the attack being called off until the Battle of Rhode Island in August 1778. By 1779, the Revolution was moving out of New England as the British pulled out troops to deploy in the action farther south. Samuel and Hannah had probably already left the area for part north. 

Husbands of daughters Elizabeth and Hannah, Hezikiah Drake and Benjamin Tirrill respectively, also served in the Revolution.

Samuel died in Easton August 20, 1777. Inventory of his estate at probate showed he owned seventy eight acres of pasture land, farm equipment, cattle, sheep, and the requisite feather bed and spinning wheel. Hannah was a co-executor on Joseph’s estate which seems to have dragged on into the 1780s. 

Hannah lived until 1790. Likely, she would have been able to stay in the family house as usually provided by a husband in a will. Son, John, had died in 1758 and two other sons had already moved out of the area - Joseph, Jr. to New Hampshire and Samuel to Maine. The only sons remaining in the area were Benjamin in nearby Stoughton and James in Easton.

Samuel Packard (1751- btw 1810-1820) and Bethiah Waters, 4th GGPs

Of a gazillion Samuel Packards named after the original Hingham/Weymouth/Bridgewater immigrant, the Easton Samuel is ours. Even in Easton, the Samuels will begin to proliferate among the descendants of Easton Joseph and Hannah.

We also see the Packards, including our Samuel, begin to spread out and disseminate into parts north as coastal Massachusetts became more crowded.

Born in September 1751 in Easton, Massachusetts, to Joseph and Hannah, Samuel was the baby of the ten children and youngest of five brothers. His brother, John, died at Ticonderoga when he was six.

Samuel was thirteen when his older brother, Benjamin married Azenath Bradford Waters and moved to Stoughton which abuts Easton to the north.

Twenty one year-old Samuel bought 15 acres of land in Easton from his father, Joseph, in 1773. The following year he married Bethiah Waters, daughter of Azenath and stepdaughter of his brother, Benjamin. We have a number of families in our ancestral lines in which brothers married sisters from the same family, even first degree cousins to each other, but Bethia and Azenath are the only mother-daughter pair marrying brothers I’ve come across.

Bethiah⁵ is one of our family’s Mayflower connections (Azenath⁴, Elisha³, Joseph², William¹ Bradford).

Samuel answered calls in 1776 and 1777 for townsmen to respond to the British issue in Aquidneck Island after the invasion of Newport, but something else was brewing with Samuel. 

In 1776, he sold 3-4 acres of his land in Easton on which his house stood, and it appears the family moved to land left to Bethiah by her father, Daniel Waters of Stoughton; the sale indicates Samuel is a laborer. The following year, just before his dad died, he sold his orchard. His father’s 1777 probate record indicates Samuel owed him two notes for five pounds each. In 1778, Samuel “of Stoughton“ sold more Easton land to his brother James, “the northeast part which Samuel Packard owns which was given to him by a deed of his father Joseph Packard.” This deed provides evidence of Samuel’s connection to Joseph of Easton, and indicates he moved to Stoughton after selling his Easton house in 1776.

With this last sale, Samuel, Bethiah, and baby daughter left for parts north. They may have moved briefly to Vermont as the next-born child, Nathaniel, gives his birthplace in Vermont in and birth year 1779 in the 1850 census. The next three children were born between 1782 and 1786 in Surry, Cheshire, New Hampshire, not far from Westmoreland where his brother Joseph, Jr., settled.

By 1788, the family had relocated to Meduncook Plantation, now called Friendship, Maine where our 4th GGF, Samuel, and the last son, John, were born, 1788 and1791, respectively. 

Friendship was originally Meduncook in the Waldo Patent Settlement of 1775. An English garrison was maintained on an island off shore for protection of settlers in the French and Indian war in 1756. Joshua Bradford and most of his family were massacred in Meduncook in May 1758 while trying to escape to the fort. The area was included in the incorporation of Lincoln County in 1760 and the town incorporated as Friendship in February 1807.

In the 1790 census, Samuel, Sr., is the only Packard living in Meduncook. The census indicates 7 people living in the household - 1 adult male, 3 males under 16 (young Samuel, Daniel, and Nathaniel), and 3 females (mom Bethiah, daughter Bethiah, and Mary). Oops! We’re missing two kids. Samuel and Bethiah had seven kids by this time. The census shows only two parents and five kids. It’s likely 15 year-old Hannah and 14 year-old James are the ones missing, perhaps working and living in other households.

By 1790, Samuel is nearly forty years old and his moving around days were not over. He removed to Waldoboro, Maine, area just north of Meduncook between the 1791 birth of his last child in Meduncook and the 1794 marriage of daughter Hannah in Waldoboro. With 245 families and as the seat of Lincoln County, Waldoboro was a relatively more bustling place than Meduncook.

The family made another and final move to Thomaston between 1794 and the 1802 marriage of daughter Mary in Thomaston. The entire family, including married daughter Hannah and husband, relocated to Thomaston. Samuel, Bethiah and all the offspring show in various subsequent records in the Thomaston/Rockland/Camden area after the move.

Thomaston was originally part of the Waldo Patent, and incorporated from part of St. George Plantation (now Cushing) in 1777. Land was set off from Thomaston to form East Thomaston (now Rockland) and South Thomaston in 1848. Known for its tall, straight trees, Thomaston was the source of timber for British ships from the time the first Englishman landed at the mouth of St. George’s River in 1605 until the Revolution.

From the Waldo Patent heirs, Samuel acquired a land grant on Mill Street that ran from Thomaston to Union, Maine, and built a log cabin on the west side of the 30-mile wall. A few years later he built the house in which family lived for over a hundred years.

Samuel’s cousins, Benjamin and Micah, sons of Solomon Packard in Bridgewater, removed to the Thomaston area about twenty-five years before Samuel although all three cousins departed the Easton/Bridgewater area around the same time. Samuel simply took a detour through Surry, New Hampshire, Meduncook Plantation, and Waldoboro.

Micah was in Cushing by 1775 when a meeting of the Committee on Safety was held at his house, and moved to Thomaston by 1800. His brother, Benjamin, a joiner, moved first to the St. George’s River area (Cushing) where his wife was lost at sea, thence to Union where he built the settlement’s first log cabin - all other settlers were living in lean-tos or shanties - and on to Owls Head, Thomaston by 1780.

The only Samuel Packard household in Thomaston in the 1810 census is likely Samuel and Bethiah (1 male and 1 female >45, 1 female, 16-25, young Bethiah).

Samuel died before the 1820 census at which time  Bethiah was living with son Samuel and Harriett. She can be found again in the Samuel/Harriet household in 1830, and died in 1837, age 79.

Samuel Packard (1788-1856) & Harriet Young, 3rd GGPs

Three Samuels later, we are down to the last. Third GGF Samuel was born in 1788 in Meduncook Plantation (now Friendship), Maine District of Massachusetts (since Maine didn’t become a state until 1820). Early records of Friendship were lost in a house fire in the early 1900s, and likely included Samuel’s birth records. We know he was born in Friendship from daughter Harriet’s death record.

Samuel was the seventh of Samuel Sr. and Bethiah’s eight known children. Two older siblings, Hannah and James, were born in Easton in 1775 and 1776. The 1850 census for the third child, Nathaniel, reports he was born in Vermont in 1779; whether factual or an error in census reporting is unclear.  At least two sibs were born Surry, New Hampshire, between 1782 and 1786 after the family left Massachusetts. Only Samuel and his younger brother, John, would be born in Meduncook/Friendship.

Samuel was two years old when the 1790 census of Meduncook showed it was a small settlement with only 48 families. The family relocated to Thomaston by the time he was 14 and, in 1807, nineteen year-old Samuel married Sarah Orbeton in Camden.

By time of the the 1810 census, Samuel is living in Thomaston with Sarah, and appears to be on Samuel Sr’s farm along with 19 year-old brother John, yet unmarried. 

The 1820 census shows Samuel still living in Thomaston with Sarah, his mother Bethiah, and two boys, one under 10 and the second between 10 and 15. These two boys possibly belonged to Samuel Jr. and his first wife, Sarah, who died within the next two years but no birth records for the boys are located. Brothers, James and Nathaniel, are living nearby. Samuel, Sr. is not in the 1820 census and the probability is he has died.

Thirty two year-old Samuel took a second wife in 1822, widow Harriet Young Fletcher, age 22, our 3rd great-grandmother. Harriet and her family lived on Matinicus Island until moving to Lincolnville, ME, just north of Camden, when she was twelve. In 1819, eighteen year-old Harriet married Nathan Fletcher in Lincolnville and they had a child, Antinette. A year and a half later, in December 1821, young Nathan died. In 1841, Antinette married Benjamin Studley, brother of our Civil War 2nd GGF, Lt. George Studley.

The 1830 census is somewhat a puzzle as it shows nine people living in the home, three males and six females. Certainly three of them are Samuel, wife Harriet, their three children (Lisetta, Harriet, and Eliza) as well as Samuel’s mom, Bethiah who didn’t die until 1837. Samuel and Sarah’s first son would have been old enough to be out of the home, but their second son might account for one of the males. That leaves what appears to be another couple, a male and female. The female may have been Harriet and Nathan's daughter, 10 year-old Antinette, who later married Benjamin Studley, brother of George Studley, husband of Samuel and Harriet's daughter, our GGM Harriet Packard.

Samuel’s 1840 census shows he and Harriet with their four children and an extra male between ages 20-29 who could be a farmhand or a younger son from Samuel’s first marriage.

In the 1850 census, the family has been pared down to 62 year-old Samuel, farmer, 49 year-old Harriet, their youngest, 13 year-old Samuel Edgar, and a 16 year-old Susan Herman, relation unclear.

By the 1860 census, 74 year-old Samuel is still living in Thomaston with his youngest son, 23 year-old Samuel, young Samuel’s wife, and two toddler grandchildren. Wife Harriet died four years earlier from an abdominal tumor at age 56. In two years, son Samuel Edgar and daughter Harriet’s husband, George Studley, would join the Union army to fight in the Civil war. Samuel Edgar served nine months in the 26th Maine plus another stint in the 9th Maine, and George with the 19th Maine for the duration of the war.

At the time of his death in 1866, only one sibling was still surviving, 90 year old James. Samuel is buried with wife Harriet in West Rockport Cemetery.

Samuel and Bethiah’s children:

Lisette (1823-1897), married Stephen Frost, farmer, resided in Rockland, 5 daughters.

2nd GGM Harriet (1827-1893), married George Studley, Civil War lieutenant and carpenter, resided in Camden, 6 children, moved in Boston about 1866. One daughter was named after her sister, Lisetta.

Altezera “Eliza” (1829-1902), married Ezekiel Vinal, farmer, lived in Camden, 3 sons, widowed at age 56 and lived with various children until her death in Vermont 20 years later.

Samuel Edgar (1836-1897), Civil War veteran and farmer in the Camden area, married Esther Vinal, 7 children.

Harriet Packard, a 2nd great-grandmother

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

Finishing up the trip, Thursday and Friday, September 29-30, 2022

So it turns out that the Roman Senate met in several places, one of which was in the Roman Forum. The meeting place where Julius Caesar was assassinated, however, is a ways away and hidden underneath a street at Largo di Torre Argentina.

See in the photo above there are several temples' ruins on the site.

But toward the right in this photo are some trees, beyond which are the ruins of the Senate meeting place, the Theatre of Pompey, where ol' Julius was stabbed to death. Et tu, Brute!!

And in these ruins is a cat sanctuary. Yes, channeling the spirits of Julius Caesar and his murderous countrymen are all kinds of cats! Look at the beautifully patterned coat on the tabby in the photo below. I suspect he is Caesar reincarnated.

And then my Sammy's ghost, living his best life...

And three more kitties. I swear, there are no duplicates here.

I was in heaven. As you might expect, I now follow the cat sanctuary, Gatti di Torre Argentina, on Instagram. I could have stayed there for the rest of the day, but Kathie was anxious to get to the Trajan Forum. More ruins...

Here is Trajan's Colonna, backed by an ominous sky.

We hightailed it to lunch, where Kathie again had her new favorite - tonnarelli cacio e pepe.

From here we hustled over to the Ponte Sant'Angelo to meet my teammate's daughter and first mama of my kitty Calcifer. She is doing a term in Roma for school, lucky girl. It was so nice to see her!

On the way home, we came up on this poor tired tourist. She had just had enough!

Luckily, there was an angel nearby to raise her up.

One last wave to the Castel Sant'Angelo, this time from the back. By now we were dragging and couldn't seem to find our way out of the site. Oh look, there's the bridge by which the pope escapes!

Dinner around the corner from the hotel, followed by a run back through the rain to pack and plan how I was going to get home the next day through the hurricane.

Hurricane aside, we had really nice weather on this trip and saw lots of beautiful scenery and nice flowers (oleander, prickly pear cacti, jasmine, plumbago, bougainvillea). The Italian bread wasn't as good as I remembered it, but the pasta and cappuccino more than made up for it! On our way to the airport early on Friday morning, we passed the Circus Maximus. How did we miss that? Oh well. Arrivederci, Italia!

What could be left? Wednesday, September 28, 2022

What could possibly be left after visiting the Vatican? With two days until our flight home on Friday, you know we found more stuff to see.

On Wednesday, we went back to St. Peter’s Basilica for a more leisurely visit.

We happened to witness this little parade. We didn’t catch the saint’s identity, so you can make up whatever name/story you think suits.

We caught lunch in a little place. Now I can't remember what I ate but I had a lovely Coca-cola while Kathie read up on what Rick Steves had to say about Rome.

The Colosseum. Woof, I hated the Colosseum. HATED it. All of the people taking selfies and merrily being tourists in a place that had seen so much violence and bloodshed, apparently unaware of the ancient suffering and bad vibes hovering around them. Kathie took some nice photos but I think this one is the best, showing the “basement” where the fighters and beasts would have awaited their fates.

And then a hop, skip, and jump over to the Roman Forum. Here’s a tourist ambling along on Palatine Hill.

That particular tourist took a bunch of photos from the hill. I like these.

In the photo just above, the pinkish brick two story in the upper left was the senate building. Remember this.

Back down in the forum itself, she got a lovely shot of the surviving columns of Il Tempio dei Dioscuri (the twins Castor and Pollux).

I was more interested in more mundane ruins, for example this shot that I call "ancient building components graveyard". Much like our Home Depot or Lowes.

Remember the senate building I referred you to above? It was NOT the senate where Julius Caesar was assassinated, which was a shock to at least one of us. Remember this for tomorrow's post.

Walk, walk, walk. We wore ourselves out trying to find our way out of the darn place, so we ubered back to the hotel for a quiet dinner.

"I made this," or Tuesday in Roma, September 27, 2022

The breakfast buffet at our Rome hotel was nothing to write home about, other than the fact that it way beat out the Hilton Garden Express (and I love the Hilton Garden Express) and you could pour your own cappuccino from the machine. Kathie and I got so we were sucking down two of those cappuccinos at each sitting. I would weigh a ton if I had one of those machines.

Then we took off for Piazza Navonna. Amazing what you might pass along the way.

And then we have three guys and a dog. I don't know how Kathie gets away with taking strangers' photos like she does.

Here's what I know about the Piazza Navonna. Built in 1st century A.D. on the site of the Stadium of Domitian, where there were "games" (I figure more animal slaughtering). Oy vey, the auras these places must have. Nowadays, a gazillion tourists flock to see the Baroque Church of St. Agnes and three fountains - Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi by Bernini, Fontana del Moro by della Porta, who also created the Fountain of Neptune (couldn't find the Italian name for that one).

That last one looks like we might have been in Pisa, but we weren't and here's proof - the Pantheon, right around the corner from the Piazza Navonna.

"I made this," said Agrippa.

Why were there so many tourists on a Tuesday in October? Why, oh why? I don't know but I love that oculus.

And then we have the Colonna di Marco Aurelio...

...and the Trevi Fountain.

Too many tourists! We had elbowed our way up to get that last pic and were trying to get a good selfie when another tourist offered to take a photo for us. She took a crap photo, handed back the phone, and then weaseled into our primo spot while we were looking at the phone! I think she was a professional tourist.

Janie had asked for a pic of the Spanish Steps.

Be sure to not sit down, though - the Spanish Steps police will fine you if they catch you sitting down.

On the way back across the river to have some lunch before we were to meet Francesca, we passed the Castel Sant'Angelo.

We had lunch at a little place close to the Vatican, where I had tonnarelli cacio e pepe, Kathie had some rice and shrimp thingy, and a couple of adolescent boys lunching at the table next to us - sans adults, mind you - ordered lasagna.

We met Francesca at 2 p.m. and went through a mob or three to enter the Vatican. Kathie took LOTS of photos. Here's the bronze Sfera con Sfera (Sphere Within a Sphere) by Arnaldo Pomodoro, 1990, in the Cortile della Pigna (Pinecone Courtyard). I thought it was cool.

And the Chiaramonti Museum, full of Roman portrait busts. A week later, an American tourist, supposedly upset that he wasn't allowed to see the pope, knocked over some of the busts and, well, busted them up. Embarrassing.

Apparently there are 24 Vatican museums. I liked the Gallery of Maps. Here's Francesca pointing out something on the map of Sicilia.

And this here tapestry on the left had Kathie all agog. The eyes of the character in red (I'm a little red-faced that I can't remember - Kath, was this supposed to be Jesus?) appear to follow the observer while s/he's walking by. There is, however, a rational explanation for this phenomenon but I'll leave that to you to look up.

Ah, the Sistine Chapel! We and 500 of our closest friends packed into the Sistine Chapel to bend our necks out of whack to see Michelangelo's famed and fantastically beautiful ceiling. Not how I remembered it from 50 years ago but what does an 18 year old know? Of course, no pics allowed, so you're on your own to look up whatever you can find on the Internet.

On to St. Peter's Basilica, the largest Christian church in the world. Overwhelmingly beautiful.

On this spot in 800, Charlemagne was crowned Emperor of the HRE.

This is Bernini's Tomb of Pope Alexander VII in the south transept. Pretty cool. You should go read about it.

Here is Bernini's Baldachin over the remains of St. Peter. Supposedly.

And above that...

Awe inspiring. But nothing can prepare you for the Pieta. Oh, the Pieta. Just the sight of her choked me up. Michelangelo sculpted her when he was 26 years old. How did such a young man capture such beauty and emotion? Beyond all comprehension.

The sight of her, for me, was the highlight of the whole trip.

But we're not done. Outside, the Vatican guards were yucking it up.

Cute. And Bernini's fountain in the Square with the Vatican post office in the background.

A last selfie with Francesca and an evening view of St. Peter's Basilica. With so few tourists, it almost looks lonely.

On our way home, we again passed the Castel Sant'Angelo. This evening shot reminds me of Dan Brown's Angels and Demons book.

It is beautiful. One of my favorite sites in Roma.