The People of the Eye: Deaf Ethnicity and Ancestry (28 page)

5 Jack clan: Bell, Memoir. See also: vital records for Belfast, Dixmont, Jackson, Monroe, and Thornlike.

6 Anon., "[Levi Jack]" Deaf-Mutes' Friend, 1 (1) (January 1869): 20. The author states there were no interpreters in the court.

7 Deaf-Mute's Friend 1(1) (1869): 20; 1 (2) (1869): 53; National Deaf-Mute Gazette 2 (19) (1868): 14.

8 We are pleased to acknowledge the invaluable help of Maine genealogists Cheryl Patten, Nancy Porter, and Flossie Dere.

9 Little and Sweetser, Genealogical, p. 393.

10 Anon., Sesquicentennial Palmyra, Maine 1807-1957 (Pittsfield, Me.: Press of Pittsfield Advertiser, 1957); G. W. Ireland, A Compilation of Data on the Early History and People of Palmyra, Maine (Shrewsbury, Mass.:author, 1980).

11 Gordon, Education of Deaf Children; see Berry family insert and symbols key.

12 Source of adultery claim re: Francis Berry and Lydia Augusta Lovejoy, i.e., Mrs. Isaac Jellison.

13 A. Pease, Phillips 150 Years (Phillips, Me.: Phillips Historical Society, 1962).

14 Works consulted about Berry family: M. R. Andre, Early Families of Georgetown, Maine, (Colon, Me.: V.T. Merrill, 1945); Anon., East Somerset County Register, 1911-1912. (Auburn, Me.: Chatto, 1912.); Anon., Palmyra, Maine, 200th Anniversary Bicentennial 1807-2007 (Rockland, Me.: Penbobscot Press, 2007); Gordon, Education of Deaf Children; C. Bell, Facts Relating to the Early History of Chester, New Hampshire, from the Settlement in 1720 until the Formation of the State Constitution in the year 1784 (Concord, N.H., Parker Lyon, 1863); J. Berry, Descendants of William Berry and Jane of Strawberry Bank, to and Including the Fifth Generation, (Kearns, Utah: author, 1992); R. S. Canney, The Early Marriages of Strafford County, N.H. Supplement, 1630-1870 (Bowie, Md.: Heritage Books, 1997); B. Chase, History of Old Chester [N.H.] from 1719 to 1869 (Auburn, N.H.: [np] 1869); J. C. Chase, History of Chester, New Hampshire, including Auburn. A supplement to the History of Old Chester, published in 1869 (Derry, N.H.: Record Pub. Co., 1926); W. P. Davis, The Berry Family of Yarmouth, Library of Cape Cod History and Genealogy (Yarmouthport, Mass.: C.W. Swift, 1912); J. Dow and L. Dow, History of the Town of Hampton, New Hampshire. From its Settlement in 1638, to the Autumn of 1892 (Salem, Mass., Printed by the Salem Press Publishing and Printing. Co., 1893); Horne, "Deaf Mutism"; H. D. Kingsbury and S. L. Deyo, Town of Vienna (New York: H.W. Blake and Co., 1892); L. P. Lemont, 1400 Historical Dates of the Town and City of Bath, and Town of Georgetown, from 1604 to 1874 (Bath, Me.: author, 1874); Little and Sweetser, Genealogical; M. F. McCourt and S. Berry, A Genealogy of the Descendants of William Drake Berry of Maine. ([s.l.] Author, 1972); L.A. Morrison and S. P. Sharples, History of the Kimball family in America (Boston, Mass.: Amrell and Upham, 1897); L. B. Parsons, History of the Town of Rye, New Hampshire, From Its Discovery and Settlement to December 31, 1903, (Concord, N.H., Rumford Print. Co., 1905); K. Richmond, John Hayes of Dover New Hampshire (Tyngsboro, Mass., 1936); G. Rogers and W. Ireland, A Compilation of Data on the Early History and People of Palmyra, Maine (Shrewsbury, Mass.: author, 1980); M. B. Whitney, Berry Family Genealogy (Boston, Mass, New England Historical Genealogical Society, 1985); E. H. Young, History of Pittsfield, New Hampshire (Pittsfield, N.H.: Town of Pittsfield, 1953).

15 A.G. Jackson, Genealogic Record of John Lovejoy (Denver, Colo.: au, 1917). This latter author gives the probable birthplace of John Lovejoy to be Hants, England. See also: Lovejoy, Lovejoy Genealogy; J. Richards, "The Descendants of Rev. John Lovejoy in Maine and Reminiscences of Early Maine Times," Sprague's Journal of Maine History 3 (1915): 112-114;

16 P. J. Greven, "Family Structure in 17th Century Andover, Massachusetts," William and Mary Quarterly 23 (1966): 234-256.

17 1. Osgood, A Genealogy of the Descendents of John, Christopher and William Osgood (Salem, Mass.: Salem Press, 1898).

18 W. M. Chamberlain, "[Letter]" Gallaudet Guide and Deaf Mutes Companion 1(6) (1860):22.

19 Lovejoy, Lovejoy Genealogy, see p. 80.

20 Bell made this claim in testimony p. 54 and part 2 p. 187. Gordon, Education of Deaf Children.

21 Lovejoy, Lovejoy Genealogy.

22 T.W. Jones, "America's First Multi-Generation Deaf Families (a Genealogical Perspective)" Deaf American Monographs 46 (1996): 49-54.

23 Jones, "America's First Multi-Generation," quotation from p. 53.

24 Fay states that Francis was born Deaf in one ear.

25 Jones, "America's First Multi-Generation."

26 It has not been established that Phoebe Lovejoy is the mother of Mary Jane Lord. This attribution was made by A. G. Bell but not confirmed by the Lovejoy genealogy. Lovejoy, Lovejoy Genealogy.

27 United States Census Office, The Seventh Census of the United States: 1850. (Washington, D.C.: Robert Armstrong, 1853); United States Census Office, Report of the Superintendent of the Census for December 1, 1852, to which is appended the report for December 1, 1851 (Washington, D.C.: Robert Armstrong, 1853). A person was presumed hereditarily Deaf if their last name occurred twice in our enumeration. We identified 272 presumed hereditarily Deaf people in 97 towns with a total population of 227,373, hence an incidence of 1.2 such Deaf people per 1000 population in towns with Deaf people. The average town had 2.8 Deaf people in 2344 citizens. We arrived at 272 presumed hereditarily Deaf people as follows: We transcribed from the 1850 census all the pertinent information for individuals in Maine listed as Deaf-Mute. We added those Deaf people who on other evidence were Maine citizens in the first half of the nineteenth century, for example, students at the American Asylum and Deaf persons identified in an 1817 census of the Deaf in New England. This raised the total number of Deaf in Maine from 261 to 406. Next, we excluded those listed as Deaf or as Mute only. Finally we retained only individuals for whom there was another (presumably related) individual with the same last name; this yielded 272 presumed hereditarily Deaf. Thus, this figure is approximate as there were included in our sample unrelated Deaf with the same last name, inflating the figure, and hereditarily Deaf individuals with unique last names who were not included, deflating the figure.(See Appendix C: Pedigree methods.)

28 Fayette, Leeds, Livermore, Monmouth, Readfield, Turner, Winthrop. The numbers are approximate only as people born in a village may leave and others may enter; censuses prior to 1850 did not identify Deaf people by name.

SPECIAL_IMAGE-page0166_0000.svg-REPLACE_ME

SPECIAL_IMAGE-page0166_0001.svg-REPLACE_ME

SPECIAL_IMAGE-page0167_0000.svg-REPLACE_ME

SPECIAL_IMAGE-page0167_0001.svg-REPLACE_ME

THE ROGERS-HOLMES CLAN

Charles Rogers and Mary Jane Pote of Freeport, Maine, had five Deaf children and five hearing early in the nineteenth century (see Fig. 14 Rogers-Holms pedigree). Freeport is on the coast about twelve miles northeast of Portland; it is situated at the head of a fine harbor opening into Casco Bay and, in its day, it was a great shipping town, like Bath; Charles worked in the shipyard as a carpenter. The Rogers progenitor, Thomas, was born in Warwick, England, and immigrated to Duxbury, Massachusetts. We have yet to identify Charles's father but it appears that his parents were related (if Rogers is indeed his mother's maiden name). The Pote progenitor, William, came from Cornwall and settled in Marblehead, Massachusetts, before 1666. His grandson, Greenfield, a Yankee skipper, was an early settler. He had a house in Falmouth (now Portland). When a complaint was made against him for sailing on the Sabbath, he loaded his house on a flat boat and moved to Freeport. One of the hearing children in the Rogers family, William Pote Rogers, was a Civil War naval hero who captained the Merrimac; he travelled widely as a merchant seaman and became the Socialist Party candidate for governor.'

Four of the five Deaf Rogers attended the American Asylum. RobertD, the youngest, overlapped there with Sarah Web Clark HolmesD of Charleston, South Carolina. About eight years after leaving school the couple married in Winnsboro and settled in Sumter, South Carolina, where RobertD took up the trade of his Deaf brother-in-law, a shoemaker. SarahD and RobertD had five Deaf children and no hearing children, as far as we know. About 1846 the family moved to Spartanburg, South Carolina, the location of the South Carolina School for the Deaf, which all five children attended. Four of them took spouses who were also Deaf. CharlesD joined his brother RobertD in South Carolina where he married a hearing woman, moved to Georgia, and was killed by a train while he was walking on the tracks.2

THE BADGER-BOARDWIN-BROWN-GLIDDEN CLAN

An important event in forming this complex of Deaf families (Badger, Boardwin, Brown, and Glidden) occurred when Benjamin Glidden of Somerville, Maine, married his cousin Susan Glidden (double line mid-left, Fig. 15 Badger pedigree). Their daughter, ClaraD, attended the American Asylum, where she overlapped with Oliver BadgerD from a large Deaf family of Charlestown, Massachusetts. The Glidden progenitor was Charles, from Devon, England (arrow). He immigrated with his wife to Boston about 1660. After living for a time with his in-laws, he and his wife moved to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, to an area known as Strawberry Bank.3 Four generations later, his descendant, Clara's great-grandfather, moved to Somerville, Maine, located on the Sheepscot River about fifteen miles east of Augusta.

Oliver BadgerD had five hearing and four Deaf siblings, a Deaf mother, and a Deaf niece. OliverD married a fellow graduate of the American Asylum and fellow resident of Boston, Delia BoardwinD, an African American, originally of Waterville, Maine, with two Deaf siblings, both of whom took Deaf spouses. We have not uncovered the Boardwin ancestry. The Badger progenitor, Giles, emigrated from Gloucestershire, England, to Newbury, Massachusetts, in 1635. His grandson took a wife from Charlestown, Massachusetts, and the family settled there. OliverD s father, William Gilman Badger, married Mary BrownD of Charlestown in 1819; at the time she was hard of hearing but became Deaf when she was twenty-five. The Brown progenitor was Nicholas, from Worcestershire, England. Mary had three Deaf siblings; the family had moved from Lynnfield, Massachusetts, to Charlestown (and later to Maine).

Seventeen years after he married Mary BrownD, William Gilman Badger was brought before the Boston Municipal Court on a charge of bigamy. It seems that, in addition to marrying Mary BrownD, who was in the Charlestown Almshouse with five of their nine children, he had also married, under the name of George B. Gilman, a certain Miss Wheat. William Badger pleaded not guilty to the charge of bigamy, then retracted and pleaded guilty. He was sentenced to two years in prison. Some years after serving his sentence, he moved to California with sons GeorgeD and OliverD. GeorgeD had become Deaf at an advanced age and had married a hearing woman, Mary Rugg. They had a Deaf daughter, Hattie F. BadgerD, in 1859. GeorgeD appears in the 1880 census in Petaluma, California. GeorgeD's brother OliverD had been cohabiting with Clara GliddenD, so she went to California, too. The two of them are listed in the 1870 census as Deaf residents of San Francisco, he as "agent for books," she as "dress maker."4

GeorgeD and OliverDs sister, SarahD, who also became Deaf at an advanced age, married George Burditt, a hearing man who went to prison for robbery, and they divorced. Then she married William K. ChaseD, active in the Deaf-World, a Charlestown clockmaker. And they divorced. GeorgeD and OliverDs other sister, AbigailD, who attended the American Asylum, was scarcely more fortunate: she married former schoolmate William NelsonD, a peddler and shoemaker, who ended up in the local "lunatic asylum." That brings us to Mary ElizabethD, who married an immigrant from Ireland, Joseph GraceD; after his death, she married another Deaf man, one who, like her, had attended the American Asylum, Daniel NorwoodD.

All in all, we have identified twenty-three Deaf people, including Deaf spouses, in this clan; eight had a common ancestor in the progenitor Edward Gilman-yet only one bore his name. The lives of the members of the Badger-Boardwin-Brown-Glidden clan may speak to another affinity of its members in addition to ethnicity; it seems that Deaf people tended to choose partners of the same social class.

THE CAMPBELL CLAN

John Campbell and Elizabeth Adams of Bowdoin, Maine, had two Deaf boys, two Deaf girls, and four hearing children (see Fig. 16, Campbell pedigree) .5 The male progenitor of the Campbells was James Campbell, who moved from Ulster in Ireland to New Hampshire, then New York, and finally to Portland, Maine, about 1742. Elizabeth Adams's family progenitor was Samuel Adams, who arrived in Quincy, Massachusetts, in 1632, thirty years old, as an indentured servant; he went to York, Maine, in 1645 and died there eight years later. President John Adams was a distant relative of the Campbells. Their residence in Bowdoin was only eight miles west of the Kennebec River, hence rather accessible by boat from many locations. Bowdoin was part of a tract of land conveyed in 1752 to William Bowdoin, a French refugee who came to America in 1685. Fronting on the Cathance River, some two miles in width, it extended from Merrymeeting Bay to the Androscoggin River. The town was incorporated in 1788 with some one hundred families and covered nearly ninety square miles at the time.

The Deaf Campbells linked up in marriage with several other Deaf families, such as the Chandlers, Riggs, Tripps, Gibsons, Wakefields, and Littlefields (see below), and the Curtises and Rowes discussed in the next section. Dorcas Campbell married her hearing cousin, William Chandler, and they had two Deaf children, CharlesD and MargaretD.6 Charles ChandlerD did not marry but sister MargaretD married George RiggsD, both of Turner, Maine, in the Androscoggin River settlement cluster. George RiggsD had a cousin, a sister, an uncle, and two nieces Deaf. GeorgeD and MargaretD had a Deaf son, CharlesD who died at twenty-two years old when he was run over by a cart. (For more on the Riggs family, see Appendix A.)

Returning to John and Elizabeth Campbell's four Deaf children, we begin with daughter AdeliaD who married Lyman TrippD, a carpenter and joiner, also of Bowdoin, Maine, who had seven Deaf relatives and a progenitor from Northumberland with a Kentish name; the couple had a Deaf son.7 Lyman's cousins, BenjaminD and JacobD, were recalcitrant students at the American Asylum; seven Tripps in all were schooled there.8 AdeliaD s sister, ElizabethD, apparently did not marry but her brother AbnerD, married Olive CurtisD; when she died he married her sister Ann CurtisD (both Mission members). Finally, George CampbellD married Sarah Maria GibsonD.9 All had attended the American Asylum.