George Studley and the 19th Maine at Gettysburg

The 19th Maine Infantry was known for its coolness under fire from its first skirmishes,  perhaps even when they got their nickname as the “Frying Pan Regiment” after an incident in which they tried to cook bacon in a frying pan supported over the fire with live artillery rounds.

Our story picks up in mid-June 1863 when the regiment finally broke camp from Falmouth where they had spent a miserable winter and in which they were based for the battles at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, losing men mostly to sickness.    They were headed for Gettysburg.   After his success at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, General Lee was taking the war to the North with the invasion of Pennsylvania, and the Union Army, including the 19th Maine, was in pursuit.   

The 19th Maine was commanded by Colonel Francis Heath.  General William Harrow had taken over command of the First Brigade and Major-General Hancock command of the Second Corps. While on the march, the North changed command of the Army of the Potomac from General Hooker to General Meade.

Their march took them through the Bull Run battle field where human skeletons were still sticking up through the ground, the 19th bringing up the rear of the Army.  Jeb Stuart’s Cavalry raided the rear at Haymarket and the 19th lost its first casualty to war.  The Army covered 200 miles between June 13 and arrival at Gettysburg on July 1st.  Lee’s 72,000 man army was well into Pennsylvania when they turned back to meet the 83,900 man Union Army, both sides racing to get the most favorable ground at Gettysburg.  Each side had about 10,000 cavalry.

The 19th was often covering 20 miles/day.  On June 29th they marched thirty two miles to reach Uniontown with a forced march on June 30 to arrive at the battlefield on the evening of July 1.  Here they took up position left of Taneytown Road, near the southeastern base of Round Top.  Fighting had been going on west of town during the day while Major General John Buford was trying to delay Confederate troops and to allow Meade’s army to arrive and settle into strategic positions. The Sixteenth Maine who had been fighting the first day returned to camp with the 19th Maine - about 25 men, all that was left of the 16th who were nearly annihilated the first day - and they recounted their story to the 19th.

George’s brigade moved to the battlefield in the morning of July 2nd, the second day of battle, and was stationed in reserve behind Webb’s Brigade and Hall’s Brigade on the left flank of the Union “fish hook”.  They were about 300 yards behind the Codori House and barn.

June 2011.  I walked the fields of the Codori farm, not knowing that a century and a half earlier my second great grandfather had fought on this ground

The Brigade remained all day in cannon range of the enemy.  Over the course of the day’s battle, front line brigades were withdrawn or reassigned, eventually leaving the 19th Maine alone on the field.  An officer of the 19th later wrote of that day,

“The Confederates knew we were there, would strike in our midst, killing or wounding a number of men.  All we could do was to lie there and guess where the next one would strike or who the next victim would be... Sickles’ Right Division (Third Corps) under General Humphreys, extended along the Emmittsburg road toward the Codori house...We watched with intense interest the progress of the battle and soon saw that it was a losing fight on part of the Third Corps.  Through the smoke we could see the approach of the coming storm.  Humphreys’ Division was breaking up and coming toward us, yet stubbornly holding on and contesting every foot of ground.  At last being overpowered by weight of numbers, Humphreys’ line came back in confusion, -- a broken, disorganized mass.  Colonel Heath walked rapidly along in front of the Regiment, cautioning the men to lie still and permit the retreating men to pass over us.  Our right extended well up the ridge, but there was no infantry connection on our left except the First Minnesota, some sixty rods away... Two batteries joined us on the left...We lay upon our faces, hugging the ground.  Nearer and nearer came the retreating soldiers of Humphrey’s Division.  Some of them were wounded and some of the wounded were being brought back by their comrades.  They were all of them in a hurry.  These men were not particular where they stepped in walking over us, they only seemed intent upon getting to the rear and out of the reach of their relentless pursuers.  Yet there were many brave spirits among these routed troops.  Some called out to us, ‘Hang on, boys, and we will form in your rear’.  Others informed us that we were whipped and all was lost.”

About this time General Hancock rode up, placed a man from the Regiment where he wanted the 19th to stay, saying “Will you stay here?” to which the soldier replied “I’ll stay here, General, until hell freezes over”, the usual attitude of the 19th, and the Regiment prepared to face the enemy head on.

“The enemy was about thirty-five yards from our lines when Colonel Heath gave the order to rise and fire.  The Nineteenth had about 400 men in line of battle when the Regiment rose and delivered its deadly fire into the faces of the Confederates.  They were staggered and halted...The Battery which joined up upon our left commenced firing the moment the front was clear of the Third Corps...The First Minnesota was stationed sixty-five rods to our left.  This Regiment (1st Minnesota) charged across the ravine, checking and driving back the Rebel brigade... this renowned charge of the First Minnesota in its great loss has never been equaled in modern warfare.

While the 59th New York and the 7th Michigan repulsed the charge of the Confederates, these regiments did not attempt to follow them as they retreated across the Emmittsburg road...The First Minnesota and the Nineteenth Maine were the only regiments in our Division that undertook to follow the Confederates across the Emmittsburg road. The Minnesota boys charged as far as our Regiment did, but owing to the fact that the Emmittsburg road did not run parallel with out line of battle, they did not reach that road.

During the progress of the battle, Colonel Heath received word that the enemy had made its appearance on our right flank.  He ordered the Regiment to fall back, and it did so in perfect order.  The distance the Regiment fell back did not exceed two or three rods, when they faced the enemy again and, in perfect alignment, began firing again...We heard the ringing order of Colonel Health to fix bayonets.  Then the order to charge was given and the Regiment started forward and down across the plain, like a tornado let loose.  The Rebels fell back rapidly and our Regiment advanced nearly to the Emmittsburg Road, capturing many prisoners, two stands of colors, three pieces of artillery and four caissons (recaptured) ... We had no infantry connection immediately upon our right or left.  Just as we were ordered back, our attention was attracted by loud cheering in the rear... When the Regiment reached the place from which we had charged with the three guns and the four caissons coming from the direction of the enemy, the whole line went wild with cheers over the brilliant charge and capture by the Nineteenth Maine.”

Colonel Nash would later write,

The Nineteenth Maine was placed beside a battery, to support it, and to hold its portion of the line, as the Third Corps had been driven back across the field, and was retiring in haste.  The enemy was completely frantic with victory, and advanced impetuously....our fire was deadly; every shot had apparently done its duty.  And when, with bayonets fixed, the command “Forward” was given, onward dashed all that was left of the Nineteenth, while cheer upon cheer rose far above the din, the enemy hiding behind rocks and bushes to escape the fury of the charge”.

A Regimental monument to the 19th Maine stands at the place of this charge.

19th Maine Inf'y Reg't.
1st Brigade, 2d Division, 2d Corps

In the Evening of July 2d this Regiment at a position on the left of Batt'y C, 5th U.S. helped to repel the enemy that had driven in Humphreys' Division, taking one battle flag and re-capturing four guns.

On July 3, after engaging the enemy's advance from this position, it moved to the right to the support of the 2d Brigade and joined in the final charge and repulse of Pickett's Command.

Effective strength. July 2d. 405;
Killed & mortally wounded 65; Wounded not fatally, 137; Missing 4.

At roll call for the Regiment that night, however, “strong men sobbed as the heroic dead were named”.  The Regiment stayed the night on the same ground where they waited for battle most of the day, but slept little for the cries of the wounded men lying between the lines.

July 3, early morning.  Four companies of the Regiment were sent to a skirmish line, advancing some to the right toward the Union center, still near the Codori house on Emmittsburg Road.  They had not eaten for 24 hours and had no breakfast nor water on this hot day.  The remaining companies, including Company A with George, waited on the battle line, somewhat protected by ground works that had been constructed.  And wait they did, as all was quiet except for fighting over on Culp’s Hill.  By plan, about 1:00 PM the Confederates opened up with  “the most terrific cannonading ever witnessed on this continent”, 138 Confederate artillery guns turned on the Second Corps in Lee’s attempt to break through the Union line.  “The very earth seemed to tremble as if in the convulsions of a mighty earthquake.  It is impossible to describe the horror and suffering of this hour”.

About three o’clock, the guns silenced and 15,000 Confederates emerged from the tree line ahead to cover the three quarters mile to the Union line, a line of infantry about a mile long, Pickett’s Charge, “one of the most inspiring sights ever seen on a field of battle”, headed for the center of the Union line where our George and the 19th were waiting.  Given the distance and open terrain exposure to artillery fire, Confederates fell by the thousands but continued to advance, breaking the Union line at “The Angle”.  The 19th met Pickett’s Charge, and then moved on the double quick toward the captured angle of the wall, “massed, many deep, around the hapless Confederates who had penetrated our lines...the contending forces hopelessly mingled, fought with desperation”, brutally hand to hand and with rifle butts.

The Second Corps bore the brunt of casualties at Gettysburg, more than any of the other Corps.  Of the 405 officers and men of the 19th Maine, 65 died and 137 wounded, and 4 missing - 53% of the Regiment.

Only minor skirmishing occurred the following day, July 4th, as Lee’s Army withdrew and began their retreat south. 

On the 5th, the 19th Maine and other regiments began the gruesome task of burying the dead on the battlefield.  Five hundred were buried on the Codori farm.  Twenty foot long ditches were dug and Confederates soldiers dragged into mass graves, piled one on top of another.  Union soldiers were buried in separate graves and each grave marked, if known.

About five o’clock on July 5th, the 19th left the battlefield.  On July 29th, Captain Charles Nash  of the 19th Maine wrote,

“Eleven months ago the Nineteenth Maine was one thousand strong.  Today its ranks number 258.  Some who were then with us are reposing on the banks of the Rappahannock; others are asleep on the stained and ever memorable field at Gettysburg.  Only a few are left.”

Our George Studley, perhaps a sergeant by now, was one of the surviving two hundred fifty eight.  He has nearly two years of fighting yet to go.

Next installment: The next two years

Source: The History of the Nineteenth Regiment of Maine Volunteer Infantry, 1862-1865, John Day Smith.

Recommended film:  Gettysburg gives an excellent account of the battle at Gettysburg

Lieutenant George Studley, 19th Maine Infantry, the First Year

Sometimes, oftimes, in searching for family history, a story comes to light that makes us wonder how we could have missed it. Such is the story of 1st Lieutenant George Studley, Civil War veteran and combatant in the 19th Maine infantry. With the Army of the Potomac, he served through campaigns that took the regiment from Fredericksburg and Gettysburg, to the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, and Appomatox.

Why didn’t we know this story? 
 
Veterans who survive the tragedy of war and return to civilian life speak seldom to family of the trauma. What could be worse than losing half your regiment in a battle?  Perhaps to lose your own boy to the war, in the same battle you are fighting. This is the story of our second great-grandfather, George, and his son, Albert Studley.

George Studley in Maine  

George Studley was born Lincolnville, Maine, in 1824, the sixth of seven children of John Studley (1790-1826) and Pearn Lang (1797-1882). 

John had also been born and raised in Lincolnville, a growing rural-coastal frontier town on the western side of Penobscot Bay. In his day, inhabitants made a living by subsistence farming, lumbering, or fishing. John served during the War of 1812 defending against British invasion of Maine. He married Pearn in 1813, when he was twenty-three and she was sixteen.

John died in 1826, when George was about two, only thirty six years old. Pearn, thirty years old, was left a widow with seven children under the age of thirteen. When George was about seven, she married Robert Dodge, a farmer, and three more children joined the household. 

In 1845, twenty-one year-old George married Harriet A. Packard, an eighteen year old from Thomaston, several towns south of Lincolnville. By1850, they were living in coastal Rockland with their sons Albert, age four, and George Leslie, age two. George’s brother, Benjamin, was also living in the house.  Both George and Benjamin were carpenters, as were four other young men in the house, so this may well have been a boarding house for young men working in Rockland's shipbuilding trade.

By 1860, George and Harriet had moved to Camden, farther along Penobscot Bay. Their household now included Albert, age 14, George Leslie,11, Arrametta, 6, Alice, age 4, and Lisetta, 6 months old.  George was working as a farmer.

While George’s life was likely not been easy to this point, it would soon be turned upside down. After firing on Fort Sumter in April, 1861, Lincoln called for 75,000 militia.  The conflict proved more costly and longer than anticipated. By July 1862, Lincoln called for another 300,000 volunteers. Maine provided more soldiers for its population than any other state in the Union, and with this last call George, now age thirty-eight, volunteered to join them.  

Harriet was left to care for the teenagers, Albert and George, three daughters under ten, and she was pregnant with Sidney, our great-grandfather.  How did Harriet make do for the three years George was gone?  Did she stay on the farm with help from the two boys?  Did the grandparents help out?

From Bath to Washington

George went to Bath, Maine, where the 19th Maine Infantry mustered into service on August 25, 1862. He entered Company A as a private. Two days later, the regiment left Maine, traveling by rail and boat to Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and finally Washington. What a trip this must have been for George who had likely never been away from the coastline of Maine!

Washington at the time had no paved streets, most buildings other than government were wood, and the town was heavily armed and fortified. 

While the Maine men were approaching Washington, the Second Battle of Manassas was being fought in nearby Virginia. According to John Day Smith, author of The History of the Nineteenth Regiment of Maine Volunteer Infantry, the recruits could hear the battle in the distance.

Another second great-grandfather, Abraham Dillow, and his two brothers, Thomas Jefferson and George Washington Dillow, were fighting at Second Manassas while George and 916 men of the 19th Maine were making their way to their camp in Washington. The regiment was assigned to forts around the city. Company A went to Fort Greble south of the city, now Congress Heights.

Fredericksburg

An error in not assigning the 19th as a “new regiment” resulted in evacuating the Washington fort in late September, heading on foot to Harper's Ferry, then across Virginia. By late November, the Second Corps was encamped at Falmouth on the bluffs across the Rappahannock from Fredericksburg. To move supplies by wagon, the 19th Regiment was put to work building “corduroy roads”, a process involved cutting down trees for logs. John Day Smith recalls the Mainers' amusement at watching New Yorkers struggle to fell trees:
 
“... the men from Maine knew how to handle an axe.  It was rich entertainment to watch the New Yorkers in our brigade trying to cut down a tree.  They would hack a circle about six inches wide around the tree and keep at it, hitting as near the center of the circle as they could, until the tree yielded.  It was still more entertaining to see some green, officious Lieutenant of our Regiment, from the city, instructing some lumberman soldier as to the proper way to do this work”.

As a result of delays building pontoons to cross the Rappahannock, the Union Army failed to start across until General Robert E. Lee’s men had a chance to occupy the heights above Fredericksburg.   

On December 11, 1862, Union soldiers crossed the Rappahannock under fire  and fought Confederate defenders block by block through the town, first major urban combat in American History. George’s brigade had the high risk task to be second to cross the pontoon to take the town of Fredericksburg. “It has been affirmed that this pontoon bridge crossed by our Regiment was laid in as hazardous a place as any position used for such crossing during the war”, reflected an officer of the 19th.

After fighting their way through town, the 19th Maine was assigned to the extreme right flank the next two days while the slaughter of the Union Army attempting to take Marye’s Heights was toward the center and left flank. The battle was a devastating Union defeat. The 19th escaped casualties, but the Union Army had approximately 12,600 casualties. George survived his first major battle, but the regiment's hardest months lay ahead.

Winter at Falmouth

The Regiment retreated back across the river and wintered in miserable winter conditions. According to Smith,

 “... our Falmouth camp was our Valley Forge of the civil war...during the winter, the Regiment lost about one hundred men by sickness (10 of these from Company A), and the burial of the comrades was a pathetic sight.  The expiring comrade “wrapt the drapery of his couch about him, and that drape was the army blanket.  In this he was buried, and his only headstone was a piece of a hard bread box.  The signal of the burial was given by the muffled drum, the power pathos of which went through all the camp.”

Vintage drawing of Falmouth camp, winter 1862-1863

John Day Smith was a member of the 19th Maine, named "Frying Pan Regiment." The name came from an incident at winter camp in which the men tried to cook bacon in a frying pan supported over the fire with live artillery rounds. One can imagine how that went.

The Chancellorsville campaign, another Union defeat, began in late April 1863.  On May 3, while Lee was diverted to Chancellorsville, Union troops crossed the Rappahannock in the second battle of Fredericksburg, and captured the Confederate position at Marye’s Heights that had proved so deadly the previous December; the 19th Maine suffered no casualties.  

By late May, the Second Corps had a new commander, General Winfield Scott Hancock. In mid-June, the 19th finally left behind its Falmouth Camp and marched north ... heading for Gettysburg.

Principal source: John Day Smith, The History of the Nineteenth Regiment of Maine Volunteer Infantry, 1862-1865, 1909.

Young Alice Packard Studley

When Alice Packard Studley, - "Grandma Nute" to us - died in 1976, her obituary gave the usual information for a woman at the time: her age, where she went to church,  how many children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren she had, and where she was buried.  

At her death, Alice was 84 years old. She attended Perry Christian Church, had four children, ten grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren, and was survived by her sister, Nettie.  Alice had been living with her daughter Jeannette in Painesville, Ohio, before entering a nursing home. She was buried in Perry Cemetery beside her husband, Raymond Nute, Sr., who had died in 1958.

Alice's unwritten history, however, is not revealed in an obituary - or in birth, marriage, death and census records.  Fortunately, she kept a scrapbook with photographs and newspaper clippings about the times and people around her. With those fragments, perhaps we can stitch together her early life.

When Alice was born in 1891, Fall River was a thriving, prosperous city with several daily newspapers, scores of textile mills, and regular steamboat service to New York City. Its high school was a four-story, towered, granite building with its own astronomical observatory and telescope. B.M.C Durfee High School, formally dedicated in 1887, stood in the fashionable Highlands neighborhood. This historic building now houses courts of the Massachusetts Trial Court.

B.M.C. Durfee High School

Alice descended from two Mayflower passengers, Richard Warren and William Bradford, from numerous Revolutionaries, and from two grandfathers who were Civil War Veterans.

The Studley Family

Alice's father, Sidney Elmer Studley (1863-1941), was born in Maine just months after his father, George Studley, left to serve in the Civil War. When George returned, the family lived in a working-class Boston neighborhood where he worked as a carpenter.

As a young man, Sidney moved to Fall River where he married Martha Hathaway Borden (1863-1936) in 1887. Sidney had worked as a clerk in Boston, but the industrious young man worked his way up until owning his own grocery store. The family lived in rented homes until about 1910, when Sidney was able to buy a house in a more prosperous neighborhood.

Sidney Elmer Studley (1863-1941)

The Borden family

Our Fall River Borden family descended from Richard Borden (1595-1671), an early settler of Portsmouth, Rhode Island.

In 1714, Richard’s descendants strategically secured the water rights along the Quequechan River valley. Those holdings eventually helped position later generations of Bordens among Fall River’s most influential and wealthy industrial leaders. 

Around the time of Martha’s birth, her father, Stephen Bailey Borden (1838-1901), was away serving nine months in the Civil War.

There is a connection to that Fall River Borden family. Lizzie Borden, infamous for being accused - and acquitted - of murdering her father and stepmother with an axe, is my third cousin, four times removed: a distant relative, but a relative nevertheless.

Stephen Bailey Borden and Lizzie shared an ancestor, Richard Borden (1722-1795), who was the second great-grandfather of both. The murders occurred in Fall River in 1892, a year after Alice was born.

Martha Hathaway Borden

Alice's sister, Nettie Studley, was the elder of Sidney and Martha's two daughters. Nettie was born in April 1889, and Alice followed in August 1891. This is the earliest photograph we have of the two girls, likely taken about 1892.

Alice and Nettie,1892

Here is Alice about a year later, very likely on her second birthday,

Alice, probably 1893

And here are both girls in matching dresses in the following year.

Alice and Nettie, 1894

The girls and their mother, Martha, seem warmly and fashionably dressed while traveling about the city in the mid-1890's.

Alice, Mother Martha, and Nettie

We have no other photographic record of the girls until this family portrait which appears to date from around the turn of the century.

 Aunt Nettie Borden Howland, Martha H Studley, Uncle Harry Howland, Cousin Ida Borden
Nettie Borden Studley, Alice Packard Studley

Nettie Borden Howland was Martha’s sister, young Alice's maternal aunt. She was married to Harry Howland.  Ida Borden was a second cousin, niece of Stephen Bailey Borden.

We have a photo of Alice dated December 1905, and labeled age "14 years, 4 months",

Alice, December 2005

Another, dated 1907, shows her at age 16, probably in the tenth grade at B.M.C. Durfee - the wonderful high school with the observatory pictured above.

Alice in 1907

This full-length photograph appears to have been taken around the same time as the portrait above, although it may be a year earlier.  Alice is wearing, as always, a beautifully embroidered dress and the same gold locket.  I know it was gold as she and Raymond later gave this writer a similar engraved gold locket.  I have wondered what became of Alice's locket.

Alice in high school

Another undated photograph shows Nettie on the left, Alice on the right, and three girlfriends. It leaves the occasion to our imagination - a wedding, a graduation, or simply going to church.  How ever did they keep those white dresses clean, what with all the horse manure there must have been in the streets? That is the subject for a future post.

Nettie on far left, Alice on far right

The next two photographs are a mystery because they are labeled by someone other than Alice. The inscriptions refer to Alice visiting someone in Tilton, New Hampshire.  Alice would have been old enough to travel on her own to New Hampshire after high school, but whom did she know in Tilton? The town was home to a private preparatory school that, for a time, awarded degrees to women. Perhaps Alice was visiting a girlfriend who had gone away to school.

"Alice P Studley, after Nute, as she visited me in Tilton, NH. Cross Road"

"Alice Studley as she looked when visiting Tilton"

Would she have had two portraits done in New Hampshire? Or were they taken in Fall River and sent to her friend. She is clearly maturing, and beginning to wear hats.

She graduated from B.M.C. Durfee High School in 1911, when she was 19, and went to work in the office of the Fall River Gas Company, where Raymond's father, Joseph, was manager.   

A 1914 photograph shows a lovely young woman. Could this have been her engagement portrait?

Alice in 1914

A photograph taken that same year included both Nute and Studley families, suggesting that Alice and Raymond had probably started their courtship by then. They may have known each other at B.M.C. Durfee High School, since they were about the same age. Or perhaps they became acquainted through Alice’s work for Raymond's father, Joseph, at the gas company.

From right: Aunt Jennie Borden, in back Susan Simmons (Harriett's servant), Mother Nute (Harriett), Aunt Annie Wilkins, Alice's mother Martha Borden Studley, and Alice in 1914

A photograph taken that same year included both Nute and Studley families, suggesting that Alice and Raymond had probably started their courtship by then. They may have known each other at B.M.C. Durfee High School, since they were about the same age. Or perhaps they became acquainted through Alice’s work for Raymond's father, Joseph, at the gas company.  

Alice and Raymond, Nov 3, 1915

Alice and Raymond were married in Fall River on November 8, 1915 and the occasion was reported in two newspapers. One Fall River newspaper described a ceremony held at the bride’s home in the presence of immediate family, followed by a reception for friends and relatives.

Home Wedding of Well Known Young People Last Evening

... The house was most artistically decorated for the occasion.  Southern smilax screened the walls and was entwined about the stair case and chandeliers. The fireplace of the room where the ceremony was performed was banked with autumn leaves through which shone red electric lights. Pink and white chrysanthemums were also used in clusters to good advantage in the decorative scheme.

As the bridal party left the upper rooms and proceeded down the stairs, Lohengrin’s Wedding March was played by Edmund Bottomly, piano, and Miss Helen Borden, violinist. The bride was accompanied by her sister, Nettie Borden Studley, and by the sister of the groom, Helen Nute. They were met under the nuptial arch by the groom and his attendant, Murray Lincoln of North Easton, a classmate at Amherst. The ushers were Alden and Warren Nute, brothers of the groom. The double ring service was used and during the ceremony, the musicians rendered “Perfect Love”, “O Promise Me’, and for the recessional, Mendelssohn’s Bridal Chorus.

There were about 150 present at the reception at 7 o’clock.

The bride wore a beautiful gown of white gros de londris, made en train and trimmed with pearls and Duchess lace. Her tulle veil was caught in cap effect with lilies of the valley and she carried a bouquet of the same flower. The bridesmaids wore watermelon pink crepe de chine trimmed with silver embroidered silk net and rosebuds. They carried arm bouquets of Killarney roses.  Mrs. Studley wore a handsome dress of grey crepe de meteor with old rose vestee and silver trimmings. Mrs. Nute wore the gown which she wore at her own wedding. It was white faille silk trimmed with duchess lace. The gift of the bride to her maids were gold brooches of filigree work set with pearls.  The gift of the groom to his attendant was a tie pin.

There was a handsome display of wedding gifts, including mahogany, silver, linen, china, heirlooms of both families and money in checks and gold. The bride is a graduate of the Durfee high school and has been employed for some time in the office of the Fall River Gas Company. Mr. Nute was a student at Durfee High School and M.I.T., and graduated from Amherst agricultural college in 1914. He is at present manager of a farm in Lakeville, Mass.

Alice and Raymond made their home at the Lakeville farm, outside of Fall River, for the next five years and started their family with the birth of their first two children, Ray Jr. in 1916 and Jeannette in 1920. Alice settled into life as a young farm wife and mother, but remained as elegant as ever, as this photograph from the 1917 wedding of Raymond's sister, Helen, shows. The wedding was held at the home of Joseph and Harriett Nute - yes, in the fashionable Highlands neighborhood.

Raymond Jr. Alice, Raymond Sr, Joseph Nute and Harriet Gove Wilkins Nute, July 2, 1917

By the time the family left Massachusetts in 1920, Alice was 29 years old. This young woman, accustomed to beautiful dresses, lace, silver and chandeliers, joined Raymond, young Ray Jr., and infant Jeannette, in taking the bold step of moving west to Kentucky. After roughly 300 years in New England, theirs was the first generation in their direct family to leave it behind.

The rest we know in A Thanksgiving Story: Raymond Nute’s Peach-Fed, Free Range Turkeys.

Lost Hikers: Sound familiar?

This article ran in the Fall River Herald in about 1915-6.  Helen is a great aunt to my generation, sister to Raymond Sr.   The article is undated but at the time of this experience she is teaching at a high school in Orleans, MA, a town just at the elbow of Cape Cod.    She graduated from Mt. Holyoke College and was a teacher until her marriage in 1917 at age 28.

YOUNG WOMEN LOST IN WOODS OF CAPE

Miss Helen E Nute of This City and Companion found in an exhausted state

Will suffer no serious effects from their way walking from Brewster to Orleans

Miss Helen E Nute of this city, daughter of J.E. Nute, manager of the Fall River Gas Works Co., and Miss Bertha Wilson of Thomasville, Me., assistant principals of the Orleans High School, had an extremely unpleasant experience Sunday night in the Brewster woods, in which they were wandering about from dark until after midnight.

Mr. and Mrs. J.E. Nute drove down from this city in their automobile Sunday morning to spend the day and started on their return about 3 PM.  Their daughter and Miss Wilson accompanied them as far as Brewster, intending to walk back to Orleans.

Not having arrived home after dark, Mr. and Mrs. Higgins, with whom the teachers board, became worried, and soon afterward made inquiries by telephone of Brewster residents, and ascertained that two young women had been seen entering the woods about 4 o’clock.  Fearing that the two teachers had become lost in the woods, Mr. Higgins notified the selectmen who also notified Deputy Sheriff Boland.

A general alarm was sent out about 9 o’clock by ringing the church bells, and searching parties were organized under the direction of Sheriff Boland, Dr. Lemuel Pope, Elnathan Eldredge, George Steel and others from different sections, who started out to search the various cross-roads and wooded paths.

Mr. Nute, who had arrived at home in this city, was notified by telephone about 9 o’clock, and he said the girls had spoken of taking a cross cut through the woods from Brewster to Orleans.  About midnight, one of the automobile searching parties penetrated the road leading through Roland Nickerson’s deer preserve near Cliff Pond in East Brewster woods, and learned that the young women had been there just before dark and inquired the way to the village.

The caretaker had directed them toward the Brewster road, but they had evidently become undecided again and had got lost before getting out of the woods.  This was the first clue to the young women since the search began.  The party took different paths, and Mrs. Higgins and his searchers soon found footprints.

On reaching a point about half way between Cliff pond and Baker’s pond they were overjoyed at meeting the two exhausted and frightened girls coming toward them, hardly able to speak from hoarseness, after shouting at their utmost for hours.  They reported having lost they way, owing to the density of the woods and the intense darkness which came on very early, owing to fog and cloudiness, when they left the Nickerson bungalow.

They were considerably worn out from their long tramp and the prospect of spending the entire night in the dark woods.  They had heard the bells and the tooting of automobile horns and whistles of every description, and could at times see the rays of the automobile headlights turned upward when climbing steep hills but, of course, were absolutely unable to make themselves heard by the searchers by screaming or shouting.

Every sound in the deep darkness, even after the rising moon had lightened it slightly, and every big tree seemed an object of terror, owing to their failing strength.  The searching parties had covered every road where automobiles could penetrate in that entire section between Brewster, East Harwich, and Orleans.

Meantime, Mr. Nute had become so alarmed that he and Mrs Nute started again from this city for the Cape about 11 PM, reaching Orleans about 3 o’clock Monday morning.  They were rejoiced to learn that their daughter and her companion had been found and that neither of the young ladies was in serious condition.  It is believed that they will suffer lasting effects from their experience.

Newspaper reporting is just not the same as a hundred years ago.

I think I may have inherited some of Helen’s genes.

Nettie: The Other Studley

Every child needs a doting aunt, and ours was Nettie Borden Studley (1889-1990), older sister to our grandmother, Alice Packard Studley (1891-1976).  They came from working class backgrounds whose New England customs meant you had a family name passed down at birth.  

Our Nettie was named for a maternal aunt, Nettie H. Borden (1869-1923),

and Alice received her middle name from a maternal grandmother, Harriet A. Packard (1827-1893).

Nettie's and Alice's father, Sidney Elmer Studley (1863-1941), grew up in the ethnic, working class neighborhoods of Chelsea and Hyde Park, Boston, and likely did not finish high school as he was already working as an express clerk at the age of 17.  

Their mother, Martha Hathaway Borden (1863-1936), also grew up in a working class family in Fall River, Massachusetts.  Martha's father, a Civil War veteran, was a laborer, machinist, and meat salesman at various times in his life.

The couple married in Fall River in June 1887 - both were 24 years old - and  settled into a neighborhood on the hill overlooking Taunton River as it empties into Mount Hope Bay.  Sidney got into the grocery business, perhaps with help from Martha’s father, Stephen Bailey Borden, and worked his way up over the years until he was manager, then owner, of a grocery on Linden Street in Fall River.  Martha must have been a good mother as pictures of the girls indicate they were well cared for, perhaps even indulged.

The little girls' photo was likely taken in 1893, the same year Lizzie Borden was accused of the axe murders of her father and stepmother in Fall River.  Both Grandma Alice and Aunt Nettie vehemently denied any blood relation to Lizzie.   Uh, seems unlikely as Bordens in that area descend from two Borden brothers.  

A mid-to late 1890's photo shows a well-dressed family on a sleigh ride outing.

Alice, Martha, and Nettie

In 1900, the family was living in a rented duplex at 594 Bradford Avenue, a nicer neighborhood, and Sidney was working as a grocery clerk.

This photo of Nettie may well be around the 8th grade, but perhaps taken when she graduated from BMC Durfee High School in 1908.

By 1910, the family owned a house at 972 Maple Street, indeed a nice neighborhood.  Sidney is a grocery store manager, Alice is 18, still attending BMC Durfee, and Nettie is 21 years old, working as a bookkeeper at Small Brothers, one of the textile mills for which Fall River was known.  Nettie remained with this company for her entire career, finally retiring at age 72.  Sidney became the owner of the grocery store on Linden Street.

In 1915, Nettie's sister married a young man from Massachusetts Agricultural College, now University of Massachusetts, and left the family home to be a farmer's wife - and we have seen what an amazing farmer he was.  When I was growing up I had heard Nettie had a fiance or young man she liked very much who was killed in World War I.  For this or whatever reason, she never married and lived with her parents for the rest of their lives.

In 1921, Sidney, Martha, and Nettie moved down the street to 724 Maple Street where they remained until just before Martha died in 1936.  In 1935, the parents and Nettie moved into a house at 172 Hanover, just behind the 724 Maple Street address, and Sidney lived with Nettie until he died in 1941.

Nettie's house at 172 Hanover Street
I believe 724 Maple is the house in far left of photo

Nettie had a way of making everyone her family, and likely her co-workers at the thread factory filled in for the absence of her parents and sister.  Alice's family, children and grandchildren became the focus of her travels, and often she of theirs.  As a youngster growing up on the farm in Lewis County, we looked forward to the Christmas gift we always knew we would get from Aunt Nettie.  I can still remember the visit when she bought me a pair of red boots.  She visited there by train,

Vanceburg Station in 1940's
Alice, Nettie, and perhaps Helen Plummer

and followed us to northern Ohio.

Jeannette, Aunt Nettie, George
Ray & Kathie
Joellen, Janie, young George

No trip to New England was complete without stopping off "to see Aunt Nettie".

Aunt Nettie, Jeannette
Donald, Joellen, George "Clif"

Fall River Herald News ran an article in 1960 on her retirement at age 72,

Bookkeeper Feted by Firm after Fifty Years' Service

Small Brothers Mfg. Co. last night honored a woman who has been with the organization for 50 years.  She is Miss Nettie B. Studley, the thread-manufacturingfirm's head bookkeeper.
When Miss Studley joined Small Brothers in 1910 to begin her first job, the firm was only 25 years old and still operated by its founders, Elisha H. and Reuben C. Small. The bookkeeping department was small; in fact, she was it. 


As a retirement gift, they gave her a TransCanadian Rail trip which she took by herself - age 72 no less.

In 1968, Nettie  gave up her residence and moved into senior living at the Fall River Home for the Aged at 1172 Highland Avenue.  She loved to show off her room and the elegant setting, pointing out they took every meal with linen tablecloths, silver, and crystal glassware.  She continued to be a prolific letter writer.  She was mentally sharp and  at age 87 amazed my Ohio Republican Chairman then-husband with her command of politics over lunch.

Throughout her life, she had a hobby of needlepoint and some of the family are lucky to have beautiful pieces she gifted.    She continued to crochet and knit afghans through her later years.

Nettie at the Fall River Home for the Aged

Fall River News in November 1980 covered a ceremony with Nettie as the guest of honor in which a tree planted by Sidney in 1940 needed to be moved and replanted.

"I remember when poppa planted the tree", she said, reflecting a remarkable memory that can summon people and dates that have long since passed.  "He wanted to brighten the area around the Haffenreffer House on Hanover Street (then owned by the hospital).  So he donated a garden that he planted himself."

The article went on to say,

The nonagenarian observes the local scene with a keen eye from her present domicile.  She marveled at the prospect of a new five story patient care facility that will consolidate Union and Truesdale services at the Union site.  

"Change is welcome", she noted, "when the old is accommodated to make way for the new".

The Fall River Herald News covered her 100th birthday party, noting she supervised all the arrangements herself.  

100th Birthday Party

Nettie died in 1990 at age 101.   Her obituary noted she was acknowledged as one of the first women in the area to hold a major corporate position in the city.

Alice died in 1976 at age 84, seventeen years younger than Nettie.  Alice had a more active lifestyle on the farm, and I have long thought the longevity difference was related in part to Nettie's positive outlook, evident even in that 1893 photo.