November 08, 2024
Column

Tilbury House offers local history books

Tilbury House in Gardiner is well-known for its volumes about ships, boats and canoes, as well as for its children’s books. But it also publishes a number of books specific to Maine history. You’ll find they’re as varied as the people who wrote them.

. Ellen Vincent compiled “Down on the Island, Up on the Main: A Recollected History of South Bristol, Maine,” co-published with the South Bristol Historical Society. The book is the culmination of an oral history project of children learning their parents’ and grandparents’ stories. Includes 300 vintage photographs. $30.

. Andrea Hawkes wrote “The Same Great Struggle: The History of the Vickery Family of Unity, Maine, 1634-1997,” drawing partially from the research of the late James Vickery. $30 hardcover, $15 paperback.

. Fran Pelletier is the author of “Little Pine to King Spruce: A Franco-American Childhood,” based on growing up in Milford in the 1930s. $15.

. Lincoln P. Paine wrote “Down East: A Maritime History of Maine,” co-published with OpSail Maine 2000. $14.95.

. Neil Rolde has written several books, among them “Unsettled Past, Unsettled Future: The Story of Maine Indians.” $20.

. Parker Bishop Albee Jr. is the author of “Letters from Sea, 1882-1901: Joanna and Lincoln Colcord’s Seafaring Childhood,” published with the Penobscot Marine Museum. $35.

. “Islands of the Mid-Maine Coast Series,” by Charles B. McLane and Carol McLane. Penobscot Bay, Mount Desert to Machias Bay, Muscongus Bay and Monhegan Island, Pemaquid Point to the Kennebec River. $35-55.

. “A Day’s Work: A Sampler of Historic Maine Photographs, 1860-1920, Part I and Part II,” compiled and annotated by W.H. Bunting. $55 each volume.

Bunting, who also wrote “Sea Struck,” will speak at 6 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 11, in Special Collections on the third floor of Fogler Library, University of Maine.

“Sea Struck” tells the story of world voyages aboard square-rigged ships just before and after the turn of the century.

The Oct. 25 Family Ties on the royal roots of President George W. Bush and John Kerry sparked a lot of interest and a number of questions, principally on the source of the information on President Bush’s ancestry.

There are many sources on the Internet relating to presidential ancestry, including the Famous People link at cyndislist.com. I also used William Addams Reitwiesner’s 139 pages of information on President Bush at wysiwig://20/http://hometown.aol.com/wreitwiesn/candidates2000/bush.html.

His work is based on Gary Boyd Roberts’ “Ancestors of American Presidents” and the unpublished research of Michael E. Pollock, who studied the genealogy of Barbara Bush.

The great-grandparents of President George Bush are:

. Samuel Prescott Bush, b. Brick Church, N.J.

. Flora Sheldon, b. Franklin Co., Ohio.

. George Herbert Walker, b. St. Louis, Mo.

. Lucretia Wear, b. St. Louis, Mo.

. Scott Pierce, b. Sparkville, Pa.

. Mabel Marvin, b. Cincinnati, Ohio.

. James Edgar Robinson, b. near Marysville, Ohio.

. Lula Dell Flickinger, b. Byhalia, Ohio.

The first four are on the Bush side of the family, the second four on his mother’s Pierce side of the family.

The New England great-great-great-grandparents are:

. Samuel Howard Fay, b. Cambridge, Mass., grandfather of Samuel Prescott Bush.

. Thomas H. Sheldon, b. Providence, R.I., grandfather of Flora Sheldon.

. Elizabeth Slade Pierce, b. Providence, R.I., grandmother of Flora Sheldon.

. Gen. James Pierce, b. Swanzey, N.H., grandfather of Scott Pierce.

. Chloe Holbrook, b. Swanzey, N.H., grandmother of Scott Pierce.

Holbrook, of course, is an old Massachusetts and Maine name, as well.

The September-October issue of UMaine Today contained a wonderful article by Margaret Nagle on Special Collections at Fogler Library at the University of Maine. As Nagle points out, the collections number some 1,200 – whew!

They range from the papers of U.S. Vice President Hannibal Hamlin to papers of author Stephen King – and everything in between. That includes William S. Cohen’s walking shoes, the music of R.B. Hall and a souvenir piece of the ballast of the British frigate Margaretta, captured by the men of Machias on June 12, 1775.

And yes, there is much genealogical information for those willing to look for it.

The Wassebec Genealogical Society will meet at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 11, in the conference room at Mayo Regional Hospital, Dover-Foxcroft.

Jack Battick will speak on calendar and date changes through the centuries and the confusion these can cause for genealogists, historians and general researchers. All are welcome. For information, contact Nancy Battick at 564-3576 or e-mail wassebec@yahoo.com.

3298. CASHMAN-MEADER. Need any and all information on Daniel P. Cashman, who md. Dec. 30, 1835, in Hallowell (Chelsea), Ada Meader, b. March 11, 1812, d. Oct. 5, 1848, daughter of Benjamin and Nancy (Newell) Meader. B.L. Richards, P.O. Box 950, Union, ME 04862; or blrtabby@aol.com.

Send genealogy queries to Family Ties at Bangor Daily News, P.O. Box 1329, Bangor, ME 04402; or send e-mail to familyti@

bangordailynews.net.


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