February 18, 2012
We are all familiar with history telling us about James Richards, "Camden's first settler", who sailed into Camden harbor on May 8, 1769 with his wife Betsy (Elizabeth Hasson) and an African American cook. Also familiar are his brothers, Dodipher, and Joseph, who previously came here to cut wood and returned to Bristol to tell James what a beautiful place this was to settle. They had a sister, Sarah, the oldest child of James Richards and Sarah Foss. Not much is mentioned about her, probably because women were not important in those days. However, I am going to talk about her for a bit.
She was born about 1748 at Dover or Rochester, NH, and married Joseph Hardy on July 5, 1775 in Camden. He was born February 8, 1748 in Westerly, Rhode Island. They had the following children:
-Joseph Hardy II was born 25 September 1775, who married Elizabeth Thorndike, daughter of Robert Thorndike. He died in 1843 in Nauvoo, Illinois, as did his wife. They had nine children.
-Sarah Hardy, born 1777 and married Joseph Bailey on 17 May 1800 in Camden, Maine. Sarah died 31 December 1862 at the "poor farm" in Camden, Maine.
-Lydia Hardy was born in 1779 and married William Hassan, Jr. They had seven children.
-Zachariah Hardy was born 12 March 1781
There may have been more or fewer, but researching back to the 1700s becomes conflicting and confusing.
So I do not have much to write about Sarah Richards Hardy, but the Hardy family is prolific. Starting with her husband, Joseph Hardy, the following is a bit of their history. It appears that Joseph Hardy came from Westerly, Rhode Island where he had been apprenticed at age five because his parents, James and Sarah (Palmenter) Hardy were town paupers.
In 1769, Joseph had a sister-in-law, Mary Pendleton Hardy, in Stonington, Connecticut. Joseph, prior to the American Revolution came to Islesborough, Maine, probably with the Pendletons.
In 1771, he was permitted to settle in Camden, Maine by the Twenty Associates. Approximately 13 years later, Joseph Hardy sold 100 acres of land in Camden bounding on the town line, and the mill privilege, being 100 rods wide and half -mile in length. In 1787, Joseph was on Seven Hundred Acre Island and sold land there. The following year he sold more land on Seven Hundred Acre Island and bought 100 acres of land in Camden, beginning at the southwest corner of the James Richards, Jr. lot. The next year, the Camden Town Records read: "1782 Dec. 24 Camden selectmen gave notice to Joseph Hardy, Joseph Hardy, Jr., Zachariah Hardy, Lydia Hardy and Sarah Hardy to leave limits of town of Camden within 15 days with their children and those under their care." In 1798, he was listed in Islesborough with a house valued at $40 and 100 acres of land valued at $110.
In 1790 US census Joseph Hardy is listed as head of a household at Isleborough. Males older than 16- 1, males under age 16- 2, females- 3. In 1800 Us Census Joseph Hardy is listed as head of household with males under 10- 1, males 25- 45- 1, females 25- 45-1. When asked "Where did you come from?" the answer was "Connecticut".
Joseph and Sarah (Richards) Hardy lived in Islesborough, and according to town Record Books: "23 April 1815 Joseph Hardy and his wife to Joshua Dodge (the low bidder) for $4.75 per month at "Publick (auction) vendue" (meaning the town paid someone to care for them). Then in 1816; "Voted Mrs. Hardy should remain as she was last year. (There was a town expense in Camden that year for Mrs. Hardy.) It was rumored that she had separated from her husband and had been brought to Camden to live with her daughter, Lydia Hassan. She died in Camden January 25, 1828.
The town of Isleborough continued to pay for Joseph Hardy even after he moved to Searsmont to live with his son, Joseph Hardy, Jr., whom the town of Islesborough paid to care for the father. The last entry regarding him in the Islesborough records is dated February 9, 1841, when the "town meeting voted to support Joseph Hardy in the town where he is." He apparently died shortly after.
For of Joseph Hardy II and Elizabeth's children were born 1805 to 1812 at Passamaquoddy, New Brunswick, Canada, where he was one of the petitioners for land on Deer Island in Passamaquoddy Bay. He returned to Searsmont, where the story goes that Joseph II first heard the Gospel preached by Elder William Hyde in Searsmont. He was so impressed that he was soon converted and baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in 1840. On September 5, 1842 he and members of his family left Maine to join the Latter Day Saints.
They left their homes and all they possessed, taking only what they could carry on a wagon. The family members were Joseph II and wife Betsy; Zacarhiah (eldest son), his wife Eliza Philbrook, and children; Lewis (second son) and wife; Elisa (daugher) and her husband Abiah Wadsworth and their family; and Joseph (third son) with his wife and their three married children. It was a long rough journey and the father, Joseph II, died in 1842 in Illinois, and wife, Betsy, died in 1843. Zachariah was chosen body guard for Prophet Joseph Smith until the Prophet's death and Brigham Young became their leader.
Zachariah died in 13 February 1846 at Montrose, Illinois of pneumonia.
Joseph Hardy, Jr.. and Elizabeth Thorndike's youngest son had a son, Robert Hardy who was born 3 April 1815 in Camden, and who married Mehitable Thorndike in 1839. Both were born and died in Camden, and were first cousins. They were both grandchildren of Robert and Deborah (Wallis) Thorndike, the first settler of Rockport, Maine.
Mehitable was a granddaughter of James Jr. and Elizabeth (Hassan) Richards, the first settlers of Camden, Maine. Robert Hardy was a grand nephew of the same.
Robert Hardy lived in Searsomont, Burnham, Rockport, Lincolnville and Camden. He was a farmer, ship's carpenter and peddler of dry goods. They had four sons. One of them, Robert Willard Hardy, married Carrie Etta Young and they lived in Lincolnville and Camden. One of their daughters, Jennie, married James Russell Carver. One of Jennie and Russ's four daughters, Doris (Carver) Delano, has a son, Sandy Delano, who has kindly shared some of his Hardy family research here.
May descendants of the Youngs, Hardys, Richards, etc., are in Lincolnville today. The Youngstown Cemetery in Lincolnville is full of the related people, but Mountain View has many of the Richards family, also Robert and Mehitable (Thorndike) Hardy.
So much for the Hardy family. What secrets from the grave will be next?
(Published February 18, 2012; The Courier Gazette and The Camden Herald -publication called Village Soup)
Barbara F. Dyer, the author, has lived all her life, so far, in Camden and is the official town historian. (She is related to Dodipher Richards as am I.)
Tuesday, May 13, 2014
Thursday, April 10, 2014
Beautiful Mount Hope Cemetery in Bangor Maine
Mt. Hope Cemetery-
Between State Street and Mt. Hope Avenue
on the east side of Bangor is a pretty place to go for a walk, research genealogy or take nice photos of the landscape. This cemetery was created to be a cemetery that had park-like qualities, and indeed it is! I will add more photos as I am able.
The Korean War Memorial
Memorial Fort-
A Squirrel roosting on some stones from women who resided in a Womens' Home in Bangor-
Part of Mt. Hope's beautiful landscape includes a pond that is full of turtles and frogs in the late Spring and Summer-
Some stones are ornately decorated while others are simple-
A View from the Soldiers and Sailors plot overlooking Mt. Hope Avenue-
Graveyards hold so much history-
Wednesday, April 9, 2014
Online Genealogy Work PET-PEEVES:
My list is growing of things that drive me nuts that people do when doing their family tree work online. Then there are a few issues I have with the online family research groups themselves. Below is a list of my pet peeves and a couple of suggestions as well:
1- typing "Unknown" in a space meant for a family name. If you don't know it, leave it blank or it will show up when accepting information from resources such as family trees! (Ancestry.com)
2- typing the dates the wrong way. The proper way to write the dates is to write it out. 3 June 1970 is how it must be written out on Familysearch. Why not do this on every site? I have also seen it done this way 1970-00-00 if only the year is known. Please don't do that. Just put the year. If you don't know the date at all, leave it blank.
3- If you do not know the wife's name, do not replace it with her married name. Leave it blank. It will mess up the matching process and you will get a lot of resources that do not apply to the woman. If you don't know the woman's name at all, please leave it blank. Do not put things like "Mrs. Berry" or "Mrs. William Berry". Leave it empty. If I accept your family tree I do not want to have to correct everything. I have begun to not accept family trees with these mistakes in them. (Ancestry.com)
4- Listing just the name and nothing else. If you know an approximate date, list it. If you know what country, at least list the country. If you know the state, add that and so on. I usually estimate at least 20 years younger than the first child's birthday when trying to figure out the mother's birthdate.
5- When you accept sources, make sure the dates and places match the information you already have. Make sure you do not list a child to a family where the child is born around the same time as the mother. Make sure the women are not too old to have children. I usually get wary when the mother is in her 50s and still having children, but it happens.
6- Make sure that you give a gap of at least 9 months between children, unless they are listed as twins. You should not have multiple children born in one year with different birthdates unless the first is born in March and the second is born in December, and even that is unlikely.
7- I don't know who does it, but when putting where a person was born or died, please don't put "ENG/MASS". If you do not know if they were born in England or Massachusetts, leave it blank.
8- I don't know who does that, but I think there is only one person who does this and it really annoys me: don't put "5-s & 3-d" in the section that asks you to list out the children. They want their names. If you must do something, put "Baby boy" 5 times and then enter the last name. Then add "Baby girl" 3 times and add the last name.
9- Familysearch- There is a number of misinformation in the trees, and often it will not allow you to delete or merge the person to correct it. VERY FRUSTRATING!
10- Type capitol letters on the beginning of all names unless it's nationality calls for a lowercase letter (such as with a surname like: "van Otterloo".)
11- I love when the address of where a person died is added to the "place of death" for people from the UK area. However, there is only room for a town, county, state and country. Please add that note elsewhere on the person's profile.
12- Findagrave.com users- IF you do not know where a person is buried and do not know where the memorial is, please do not create an account for that person. This site is called "Find a grave" yes, but you have to find the grave first in order to post it. At least know what cemetery they are in.
14- A note to let people know that not all vital records are correct. Example in my own tree: The marriage of my great Grandmother and Great Grandfather, my Gr. Grandmother actually lists her grandmother as her mother. I don't know if she was aware of that error or if she really didn't know her mother's name, but even though I have the record of their marriage, and it is recorded in the vitals that way does not make it correct.
15- Native American ancestors- There are a lot of tales and family legends that include Native Americans in otherwise white (or other nationality) families. Some may be correct. Some may have a bit of truth to them, and some may be totally made up. If you can back up your random Native American with something other than someone else's family tree, records somewhere, diary entries, skills etc. at that as a source. Check out if the date and place your ancestor is said to have lived matches what was going on in that time period. Don't expect Anglo names from your Native relatives, but don't expect that they did not also have an English name given to them by the white people so that they could remember and pronounce their name. Back in the 1600s, the English language did not have correct spellings of much of anything. Thus, mutations of names and places have occurred over the centuries. This goes for Native American names and places as well. Names will have odd spellings because they would spell the name how it sounded to them. "No- Pee" derived from "Nope". It is not necessarily a hoax, but make sure all the dates and places match before even accepting the information.
-- be aware of mentions of "Indian princesses" in your family tree.
-- Learn about what tribes were in that area around the time your ancestor was and see if it matches facts.
-- Know that if the marriage was a tribal marriage, there may be no record of the wedding.
-- Make sure your sources are credible.
http://nativeamericanencyclopedia.com/fast-facts-about-the-history-maine-indians/
16- Often if a baby was born and died young or if a child was born and was deemed "simple" or any other words to describe a defect, the parents may name another child with the same name. Make sure you don't merge these children together. Get rid of duplicate names in your family tree (if the program lets you like Familysearch who may not).
17- If a death certificate lists a cause of death, take note of that in that person's profile. It is an interesting way to track the health of a family over the generations.
18- Many people used to use the same names generation to generation. I get why, but it really makes finding the right people really difficult. That is why other information is so important, so you can tell one Elizabeth Smith from the next ten Elizabeth Smiths in the tree.
19- Please READ CAREFULLY the information you accept into your tree! Other people doing their trees what the facts of their ancestors. Do not blindly accept any and all information you find. If you are not sure, save that information elsewhere until you find out that it is a match. This goes for Familysearch and Ancestry (those are the two I work with). If you cannot find a person in one of these family tree sites, try Googling the ancestor and finding the information elsewhere. You may be surprised at what you find out!
20- I've notices that some sources that pop up as hints have very little information to them to the point where it could be my person or maybe not. There are census records that just has a list of men on them. No other information. There is no way I can tell if that person with the same name is my person from that census. I won't accept those types of hints.
1- typing "Unknown" in a space meant for a family name. If you don't know it, leave it blank or it will show up when accepting information from resources such as family trees! (Ancestry.com)
2- typing the dates the wrong way. The proper way to write the dates is to write it out. 3 June 1970 is how it must be written out on Familysearch. Why not do this on every site? I have also seen it done this way 1970-00-00 if only the year is known. Please don't do that. Just put the year. If you don't know the date at all, leave it blank.
3- If you do not know the wife's name, do not replace it with her married name. Leave it blank. It will mess up the matching process and you will get a lot of resources that do not apply to the woman. If you don't know the woman's name at all, please leave it blank. Do not put things like "Mrs. Berry" or "Mrs. William Berry". Leave it empty. If I accept your family tree I do not want to have to correct everything. I have begun to not accept family trees with these mistakes in them. (Ancestry.com)
4- Listing just the name and nothing else. If you know an approximate date, list it. If you know what country, at least list the country. If you know the state, add that and so on. I usually estimate at least 20 years younger than the first child's birthday when trying to figure out the mother's birthdate.
5- When you accept sources, make sure the dates and places match the information you already have. Make sure you do not list a child to a family where the child is born around the same time as the mother. Make sure the women are not too old to have children. I usually get wary when the mother is in her 50s and still having children, but it happens.
6- Make sure that you give a gap of at least 9 months between children, unless they are listed as twins. You should not have multiple children born in one year with different birthdates unless the first is born in March and the second is born in December, and even that is unlikely.
7- I don't know who does it, but when putting where a person was born or died, please don't put "ENG/MASS". If you do not know if they were born in England or Massachusetts, leave it blank.
8- I don't know who does that, but I think there is only one person who does this and it really annoys me: don't put "5-s & 3-d" in the section that asks you to list out the children. They want their names. If you must do something, put "Baby boy" 5 times and then enter the last name. Then add "Baby girl" 3 times and add the last name.
9- Familysearch- There is a number of misinformation in the trees, and often it will not allow you to delete or merge the person to correct it. VERY FRUSTRATING!
10- Type capitol letters on the beginning of all names unless it's nationality calls for a lowercase letter (such as with a surname like: "van Otterloo".)
11- I love when the address of where a person died is added to the "place of death" for people from the UK area. However, there is only room for a town, county, state and country. Please add that note elsewhere on the person's profile.
12- Findagrave.com users- IF you do not know where a person is buried and do not know where the memorial is, please do not create an account for that person. This site is called "Find a grave" yes, but you have to find the grave first in order to post it. At least know what cemetery they are in.
14- A note to let people know that not all vital records are correct. Example in my own tree: The marriage of my great Grandmother and Great Grandfather, my Gr. Grandmother actually lists her grandmother as her mother. I don't know if she was aware of that error or if she really didn't know her mother's name, but even though I have the record of their marriage, and it is recorded in the vitals that way does not make it correct.
15- Native American ancestors- There are a lot of tales and family legends that include Native Americans in otherwise white (or other nationality) families. Some may be correct. Some may have a bit of truth to them, and some may be totally made up. If you can back up your random Native American with something other than someone else's family tree, records somewhere, diary entries, skills etc. at that as a source. Check out if the date and place your ancestor is said to have lived matches what was going on in that time period. Don't expect Anglo names from your Native relatives, but don't expect that they did not also have an English name given to them by the white people so that they could remember and pronounce their name. Back in the 1600s, the English language did not have correct spellings of much of anything. Thus, mutations of names and places have occurred over the centuries. This goes for Native American names and places as well. Names will have odd spellings because they would spell the name how it sounded to them. "No- Pee" derived from "Nope". It is not necessarily a hoax, but make sure all the dates and places match before even accepting the information.
-- be aware of mentions of "Indian princesses" in your family tree.
-- Learn about what tribes were in that area around the time your ancestor was and see if it matches facts.
-- Know that if the marriage was a tribal marriage, there may be no record of the wedding.
-- Make sure your sources are credible.
http://nativeamericanencyclopedia.com/fast-facts-about-the-history-maine-indians/
16- Often if a baby was born and died young or if a child was born and was deemed "simple" or any other words to describe a defect, the parents may name another child with the same name. Make sure you don't merge these children together. Get rid of duplicate names in your family tree (if the program lets you like Familysearch who may not).
17- If a death certificate lists a cause of death, take note of that in that person's profile. It is an interesting way to track the health of a family over the generations.
18- Many people used to use the same names generation to generation. I get why, but it really makes finding the right people really difficult. That is why other information is so important, so you can tell one Elizabeth Smith from the next ten Elizabeth Smiths in the tree.
19- Please READ CAREFULLY the information you accept into your tree! Other people doing their trees what the facts of their ancestors. Do not blindly accept any and all information you find. If you are not sure, save that information elsewhere until you find out that it is a match. This goes for Familysearch and Ancestry (those are the two I work with). If you cannot find a person in one of these family tree sites, try Googling the ancestor and finding the information elsewhere. You may be surprised at what you find out!
20- I've notices that some sources that pop up as hints have very little information to them to the point where it could be my person or maybe not. There are census records that just has a list of men on them. No other information. There is no way I can tell if that person with the same name is my person from that census. I won't accept those types of hints.
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