John Stacy first appears in our local histories on page 407 of The History of Parsonsfield written in 1888:
In William Teg’s History of Porter,
written in 1957, we learn a little more detail about our settler when he elaborates
on the bear story contained in the Parsonsfield book:
The property to which John and his
family moved was described in the deed from Jonathan Blazo shown below as situated
in Porterfield Plantation in the County of York “being the whole of lot 12 in the E Range as
described in the Proprietors Plan of said Porterfield and being the same which
Blazo has heretofore occupied, containing 100 acres more or less”.
The arrow shows the probable location as G.F. Stacey on the 1875 map.
Of John and Ruth’s 5 offspring only 2 were still at home at the time the census was taken in 1820 - Hannah, age 21, and George, age 16. The 3 older ones had married and begun their own families by then.
Oliver married Abigail Fox in 1814;
Salome married Jonathan Fox in 1812;
and
Jordan married Sally Libby in 1817.
These family pairings, all children
of early settlers, have wonderful stories some of which may be shared in future
blogs. But for now we will share one
story involving John’s eldest son, Oliver, as told in William Teg’s Porter
book. Apparently Oliver, like his
father, was a good marksman and 1820 was not only the year in which Maine
became a state. It was also the year of…
In 1837 John died and made the following provision for his beloved wife, Ruth.
By now George and his wife Lydia had
added two sons to their family: Jordan 2nd,
born 1830 and named for George’s brother Jordan, and John, born 1831 and named
for his grandfather.
In 1850 the family added a daughter-in-law after Jordan 2nd, by then 20, married Lydia Frances Tibbetts, age 18. His brother John, age 18, was also in the household. Jordan 2nd’s occupation was listed in the census as school teacher.
In 1860 Ruth, living with her son George and his extended family, was 88 years old and listed as a domestic. There were 4 generations living under one roof: Ruth, her son George and his wife Lydia, their sons John and Jordan 2nd joined by his wife Lydia Frances as well as their son, John M., and daughter, Augusta A. George listed his occupation as a farmer and Jordan 2nd was listed as a teacher of high school.
Ruth Stacy died in October of 1865 at
the age of 94, having outlived her husband by 28 years. She rests surrounded by generations of family
members in the Kezar Falls Burial Ground in Porter.
The next census in 1870 showed the family continuing to grow with 2 more children added to Jordan 2nd and Lydia Frances’s brood. Head of the household George had added Town Treasurer to his farming duties and Jordan 2nd was no longer teaching but was a farmer/cattle broker instead. Their wives were keeping house and we learned that George’s son John, age 38, was an invalid. Jordan 2nd’s oldest son, John M., was helping on the farm at age 16 while his younger sisters, Annie M. (listed as Augusta A. on an earlier census record) and Elizzie were in school at ages 10 and 5 respectively. Another son, Sidney G., was one year old.
On April 3rd, 1876 George died at the age of 72. In his will he provided for those he left behind, leaving 1/5 of his estate to his widow, 1/5 to his invalid son John and the remaining 3/5 to his son Jordan 2nd.
At some point the family relocated
into the new village of Kezar Falls on what is now called School Street as
shown on the 1872 map of the Porter side of Kezar Falls.
Rather, we found Jordan 2nd living on
what is now called Main Street near the intersection with Pine Street as
evidenced by the 1872 map below and the nearby neighbors listed in the census. We also noted the absence on the census of
John M., son of Jordan 2nd, who died in 1873 at the young age of 19.
The next few years were ones with several more losses in the family. In November of 1885 Jordan 2nd’s mother, Lydia, died followed in death two years later by her son John who died in October of 1887.
In May of 1893 tragedy struck again
when their daughter Annie tragically died while visiting at their home for the
summer with her two young daughters. Her
husband, Robert Fulton Wormwood , was publisher of the Oxford County Record
newspaper in Kezar Falls and Fryeburg from 1883 to 1892 and had just begun a
position with the Portland Evening Express at the time of his wife’s death. They were married in 1884 and had two
daughters, Bertha (born 1885) and Florence (born 1887).
The 1900 Census showed Lydia Francis as head of household, Jordan 2nd having died in May of 1898. Living with her were Bertha Wormwood, age 15, and Florence Wormwood, age 13, her granddaughters. Their grandmother knew well what it meant to lose a parent while young – her own father, Henry Tibbetts, had died at the age of 43 when she was but 11.
In 1906 Bertha married Herbert Doe and the census of 1910 shows them living in the house on School Street with her grandmother having added two children to the family – Muriel, born 1908, and Ruth, born 1910.
Lydia Francis Tibbetts Stacy died in December 1920. By that time Bertha’s family had moved into a house down the street and added 2 more children to their family – Esther, born 1917, and George, born 1918. Her granddaughter Florence married 3 times, Roscoe Moulton in 1908 whom she must have later divorced, Morton Garland in 1918 who died in 1921, and Daniel Garland in 1926 who was 30 years her senior. He died in 1942 and she in 1971, childless.
After Florence’s death, her sister Bertha
having predeceased her in 1951, Bertha’s heirs sold the house on School Street
to David and Kay Leavitt in 1972 who remain at the property still.
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