The People of the Eye: Deaf Ethnicity and Ancestry (27 page)

FrancisD and Betsy were married in 1798 and had seven children. One daughter, Phoebe, had a Deaf son, OrrinD, out of wedlock and also a Deaf daughter, Mary Jane LordD, through marriage with a Deaf family with Kentish origins (see Lord pedigree on the website). Another daughter of FrancisD and Betsy, Mahala, married James Smith, son of James Smith and Mary Braley, who were related to Mahala's mother. Another of FrancisD and Betsy's children, FrancisD, married James' sister, also named Betsy Smith, in 1829. The ancestor of these Smiths appears to be Eliab; it is tantalizing to consider that he may be a descendant of a Vineyard Smith, but so far no connection has been found. FrancisD was reportedly abrasive and lazy and his wife inefficient and unreliable 22 They had three children, all born in Sidney; one died in infancy, one was hearing, and one was Deaf- BenjaminD, an Asylum alumnus and Mission member. BenjaminD was said to be "[A] quiet well-disposed person, very good [at] work.... has considerable mechanical ingenuity, quite intelligent."23 BenjaminD and his wife, Susan Gordon (she was from a family with three Deaf members), had eight children, three of whom were Deaf: RoscoeD, HattieD, and LydiaD. LydiaD married Isaac JellisonD, as we have seen (Fig. 10), thereby bridging these two large clans. RoscoeD attended the New England Industrial School for the Deaf (founded by Thomas BrownD s nephew, William SwettD) and HattieD and LydiaD attended the American Asylum. LydiaD and IsaacD had five hearing children and three Deaf sons: JohnD, the oldest, attended the American Asylum. JamesD and the youngest son, EddieD, were members of "The Frat," the National Fraternal Society of the Deaf; founded in 1901, it provided advocacy and insurance.

When Betsy Smith died, Francis LovejoyD married Matilda Copp and they had six children in Sidney, four of whom were Deaf. Two never married-ErastusD and Phoebe AnnD, both of whom graduated from the American Asylum and attended the Mission. Their daughter Abigail LovejoyD and her husband George BerryD were also Asylum graduates and he was a Mission member and shoemaker. The couple settled in Chesterville, Maine, and were supported by the town. According to the Lovejoy genealogist, AbigailD failed to live a virtuous life and had an illegitimate hearing son. AbigailD and GeorgeD united the Berry and the Lovejoy clans; they settled in his native town, Vienna, Maine, and had four Deaf children and five hearing.

Finally, FrancisD and Matilda's son FrancisD married Hannah Josephine MarrD from nearby Augusta; HannahD had a Deaf mother and three Deaf siblings.24 Husband and wife belonged to the Deaf-Mute Mission, and had two Deaf children, MedoraD and ErastusD. By one report, FrancisD was not inclined to steady work and in time his family became dependent on welfare provided by the town of Sidney. When the town grew weary of the burden, it moved the family to Augusta, where they were supported by charity and relatives.25

Concord, Fayette, Sebec, Sidney-we can now appreciate the importance of the Lovejoy node in the Maine Deaf kinship network and the founding of the Deaf-World in New England. Members of the Lovejoy clan, with some twenty-five Deaf members with that name in five generations, married into the Berry and Jellison clans, linked up with the Marr family with four Deaf members, and the Gordon family with three Deaf members. In addition to forming ties with other Deaf families through marriage, the Deaf Lovejoys created informal ties by participating in Deaf organizations such as the American Asylum and its alumni gatherings, the New England Gallaudet Association of DeafMutes, and the Deaf-Mute Mission.26

WHERE DEAF PEOPLE LIVED

Using the 1850 federal census and other sources, we can obtain a very approximate idea of the distribution of Deaf people in Maine's early towns and cities in the first half of the nineteenth century. We identified 272 presumed hereditarily Deaf people, .5 per 1,000; they lived in nearly one hundred towns with a total population of a quarter of a million. The average town with Deaf inhabitants, then, had just fewer than three Deaf people among roughly 2,500 citizens.27 These statistics reveal an interesting constraint that must have operated on Deaf people. Unlike hearing people, Deaf people often had to look outside their town to find neighbors and a spouse from their own ethnic group. The rivers played an important role for all Maine inhabitants, bringing in goods, supplying water for crops and livestock, bringing out farm surplus, facilitating travel, but perhaps there was a special incentive for Deaf people to locate near rivers when they could, so that they would have easier access to other Deaf people. In any event, two-thirds of the Deaf population lived adjacent to just six rivers-the Sandy River, the Penobscot, the Kennebec, the Androscoggin, the Moussam, and the Saco.

The Sandy River cluster of towns accounted for 12 percent of the Deaf population but the region was sparsely settled with only 2 percent of the total population. Consequently, the Sandy River cluster had the highest concentration of Deaf people in the state, almost three Deaf persons per thousand. Of all the river towns with Deaf inhabitants, Phillips had the highest incidence, 6.3 per thousand, in part because of the Berry clan.

Next in concentration of Deaf people come the eighteen towns gathered along the Androscoggin River. That cluster accounted for 20 percent of the Deaf population but only 6 percent of the total population; Deaf incidence was just under two per thousand in these towns. With sixty-two Deaf inhabitants, this cluster had a sizeable Deaf population, which raises the question whether some Deaf people were drawn to that region by the presence of other Deaf people. Considering just the cluster of seven towns encircling Wayne, within a radius of ten miles or less, there were, in the first half of the nineteenth century, approximately twenty Deaf people living there.28 There were nine Deaf people in Turner alone, most of whom attended the American Asylum. Turner lies on the left bank of the Androscoggin River facing Leeds on the right bank.

There were fifteen towns along the Kennebec River accounting for 14 percent of the Deaf population and 6 percent of the total population; an average of 1.3 Deaf persons per thousand in those towns. Sidney leads the pack: four Deaf families with ten hereditarily Deaf members (six of them Lovejoys) resided in a community of just under two thousand inhabitants or five Deaf per one thousand. Sidney was well placed for contacts among Deaf families; because it is on the Kennebec River, it was within easy reach of Gardiner and, further south, Bowdoin and Bowdoinham, where nine Deaf families with sixteen members lived. Sidney was, moreover, just a day's horseback ride from the Androscoggin cluster.

There were six towns close to the Penobscot River with seventeen Deaf inhabitants in all. That includes Monroe, where the Jacks and Jellisons lived, and Bangor, home of the Larrabees and others. The two remaining river clusters are Saco and Moussam, with twenty and sixteen Deaf inhabitants, respectively, in the southernmost part of the state. There resided Deaf families like the Wakefields, Littlefields and Nasons discussed below (see Appendix A). Finally, one-third of the hereditarily Deaf population of Maine was to be found in towns and cities that do not have rivers nearby. For ethnic minorities then as now, settling in a large town or city may be the best way of ensuring that one can gather with other members of the ethnic group nearby.

Notes

Part III

A.G. Bell, Memoir Upon The Formation of a Deaf Variety of the Human Race (Washington, D.C.: Volta Bureau, 1883); see Table IV.

2 Smith, The Ethnic Origins of Nations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), quotation from p. 22.

The following were listed as members of the NEGA from Maine in the 1857 rolls: Chamberlain, Thomas J.; Cleaves, Daniel; Denny, Edward; Downing, Jacob; Emerson, John; Hunt, Hiram F.; Lemont, Wm. T.; Marsh, Jonathan R; Page, John W.; Stevens, Charles; Titcomb, Augustus. In addition, John Emerson represented Maine on the Board of Managers and Ebenezer Curtis and Samuel Rowe are listed as Boston residents

4 Congregational churches in Maine. General conference. Maine Deaf Mute Mission, Organized Dec. 31,1877 (Belfast, Maine: Progressive Age Press, 1881). In 1874, sixteen "Deaf-Mutes" formed an association called the Biddeford and Saco Deaf-Mute Christian Association; Chairman, R. G. Page, Treasurer, J. W. Page, Assistant, Augustus Titcomb. William Swett addressed the group. Anon. "From Maine," Silent World (1874): 5. This group may have been a precursor of the Maine Deaf-Mute Mission in 1877. The Fifteenth Biennial Convention of the New England Gallaudet Association was held at Portland, Me., August 8-10, 1886. The Boston Deaf-Mute Christian Association was organized in 1851 and incorporated in 1866.

Chapter 8

D. C. Poole, A New Vineyard (Edgartown, Mass.: Dukes County Historical Society, 1976); L. D. Rich, The Kennebec River (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1967).

2 Poole, A New Vineyard. See also: W. Butler, "Martha's Vineyard, a Diary by William Butler," Dukes County Intelligencer 8 (2) (1966): 23-32.

B. Caldwell, Rivers of Fortune: Where Maine Tides and Money Flowed (Camden, Me.: Down East Books, 1983).

4 Wing correspondence, Gallaudet University Archives

Poole, A New Vineyard. See also: R. Wright, Hawkers and Walkers of Early America (Philadelphia, Lippincott, 1927).

6 Adapted from Poole, A New Vineyard, see p. 41.

Smith-Parkhurst: F. G. Butler, A History Of Farmington Maine 1776-1885 (Farmington, Me.: Moulton, 1885). See also: Poole, A New Vineyard. We wish to thank Harriette Otteson for sharing family genealogy with us.

8 G. Huntington, "Chilmark's Deaf: Valued Citizens," Dukes County Intelligencer 22 (1981): 98-102. See also: B. Bahan and J. Poole-Nash, "The Formation of Signing Communities: Perspective from Martha's Vineyard," in J. Mann, ed., Deaf Studies IV Conference Proceedings (Washington, D.C.: Gallaudet University College of Continuing Education, 1996), 1-26; Nora Groce's thesis, p. 188, speaks of a one-arm Jedidiah and brother Nathaniel, both Deaf. N. Groce, "Hereditary Deafness on the Island of Martha's Vineyard: An Ethnohistory of a Genetic Disorder" (Ph.D. diss., Brown University, 1983).

9 Huntington refers to Jared's wife as "Lutie." The only wife of Jared we found of record in the censuses and other sources was Jerusha Reed. See also: G. Huntington, "Chilmark's Deaf: Valued Citizens," Dukes County Intelligencer 22 (1981): 98-102

10 H. Davis, Dolor Davis: A Sketch of His Life With a Record of His Earlier Descendants (Cambridge, Mass.: The Riverside Press, Houghton and Company, 1881).

11 W. C. Hatch, A History of the Town of Industry, Franklin County, Maine. Embracing the Cessions of New Sharon, New Vineyard, Anson and Starks (Farmington, Me: Press Of Knowledge, 1893); Poole, A New Vineyard. East Strong was annexed to New Vineyard in 1861. See also: Butler, History Of Farmington Maine; L. Brackley, Strong, Maine Incorporated 1801: An Historical Account of a Sandy River Settlement-(Strong, Me.: Strong Historical Society, 1992); W. Allen, "Sandy River Settlements," Collections of the Maine Historical Society 4 (1856) 31-40.

12 Newcomb: G. F. Hall, Newcomb Genealogy. Library of Cape Cod History and Genealogy #42 (Yarmouthport, Mass.: C.W. Swift, 1914); B. M. Newcomb, Andrew Newcomb and His Descendants, Revised ed. (Berkeley Calif., author, 1923).

13 In Bell's pedigree for the Newcomb family as published in Horne, the families of 2, 3, 5, and 7 Deaf children are shown as "deaf families," as are their great grandparents; J. C. Gordon, Education of Deaf Children: Evidence Of Edward Gallaudet and Alexander Graham Bell Presented to the Royal Commission of the United Kingdom on the Condition of the Blind, Deaf and Dumb, etc. (Washington, D.C.: Volta Bureau, 1892); J. Horne, "Deaf Mutism," Treasury of Human Inheritance. Francis Galton Laboratory for National Eugenics; Eugenics Laboratory Memoirs 27 (1909): 27-72.

14 E. S. Stackpole, Old Kittery and Her Families (Rockport, Me.: Picton Press, 2001); J. C. Stinchfield, History of the Town of Leeds in Androscoggin County, Maine, from its Settlement, June 10, 1780. (Lewiston, Me., Press of Lewiston journal, 1901. Reprint, Bowie, Md.: Heritage Books, 1996).

15 J. Freeman, Dukes County 1807. Reprinted: Dukes County Intelligencer 12(4): 1976,1-51.

16 C. E. Lovejoy, The Lovejoy Genealogy (New York: Au., 1930); Gordon, Education of Deaf Children; J. Richards, "The Descendants of Rev. John Lovejoy in Maine and Reminiscences of Early Maine Times," Sprague's Journal of Maine History 3 (3) (1915):112-114.

17 Horne, "Deaf Mutism," quotation from p. 70.

18 Poole, A New Vineyard.

19 Allen sources: Poole, A New Vineyard; W. Allen, History of Industry, Maine.(Skowhegan, Me., Smith and Emery, 1869); C. E. Banks, The History of Martha's Vineyard, Dukes County, Massachusetts in Three Volumes (Edgartown, Mass.: Dukes County Historical Society, 1966); Hatch, Industry; G. Little and S. Sweetser, Genealogical and Family History of the State of Maine, 4 vols (New York: Lewis Historical Pub. Co., 1909).

20 Executive Council Papers, 1825-13-50 v.1 p. 347 Box 13 folder 50

21 Blaisdell Family National Association., "Blaisdell Papers: Genealogical Outline; 7th, 8th and 9th Generations From Ralph Blaisdell," Blaisdell Papers 11(2) (Suppl.) (1987); 10 (5) (1983).

22 Executive Council Papers, State of Massachusetts.

23 P. K. Valentine, "A Nineteenth Century Experiment in Education of the Handicapped: The American Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb," New England Quarterly 64 (1991): 355-375.

Chapter 9

Adapted from: www.townofmonroeme.net/id3.html (accessed 7/24/2010).

2 Jellison clan: We thank Eunice Ladd for sharing family genealogy with us. Gordon, Education of Deaf Children; M. G. Hinckley, Nicholas Jellison of Maine [manuscript]: New Material to Supplement Material on File and Establish New Lines With Any Corrections That May Have Been Necessary (Clearwater, Fla.: au., 1962).

3 J. R. Ham, "Ham Family in Dover N.H." New England Historical and Genealogical Register (26) 1872: 388-394.

4 S. Rich, The Mayo Family of Truro, Library of Cape Cod History and Genealogy (Yarmouthport, Mass.: C.W. Swift, 1914); E. J. Mayo Rodwick, Rev. John Mayo and his Descendantsl(Las Cruces, N. Mex.: Blood Ties, 2001).