Eddington’s Comins Hall named for early settlers

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The Eddington Clifton Civic Center is planning a March 22 show with humorist Tim Sample to show off recent work on Comins Hall in East Eddington, and to kick off a campaign for improvements such as handicap accessibility. The Maine Community Foundation has contributed $2,000 to help host the evening.

Where’s the genealogy in that? Oh, there’s plenty.

Eddington, of course, is named for Revolutionary War soldier Jonathan Eddy who was, it’s nearly 100 percent certain, a descendant of William Eddy of Cranbrook, England.

But what I really wanted to know is, for whom was Comins Hall named, and might they be, as am I, descended from John Comins of Woburn, Mass.?

So I asked, and before you knew it I was in touch with a brand-new cousin, Ruth Williams Perry.

“The hall is named for the Comins family that has lived on Route 46 in Eddington since 1803, when Maine was part of Massachusetts,” she wrote.

Here’s the line:

. Coolidge Comins, 1770-1848, War of 1812.

. Elijah Comins, 1807-1894, state legislator and town official.

. Jerome H. Comins, 1844-1935, state legislator and town official.

. J. Herbert Comins, 1890-1980, state legislator and town official.

. Alma Comins Williams, 1918-2001, wife to R. Leon Williams, Clifton.

Ruth Perry is their daughter, as is Margaret Williams McKinney, who lives at the Comins homestead.

Coolidge was one of four sons of William and Margaret (Hammond) Comins of Charlton, Mass., the three others being Jonas, William and James.

(My favorite reference on Comins-Cummings genealogy is the award-winning “The Descendants of John Comins (ca. 1668-1751) and His Wife Mary, of Woburn and Oxford, Massachusetts and Windham County, Connecticut,” by Abbott Lowell Cummings, 2001.)

Coolidge’s father, William, was the son of Jacob and Huldah (Coolidge) Comins, and Jacob was the son of John and Mary Comins. So that’s the line back to the progenitor – but there’s more. Coolidge wasn’t the only one in town.

“Ethel (Leach) Comins, wife of J. Herbert Comins, is a descendant of William Comins, brother to Coolidge Comins,” Ruth Perry wrote. “William and Coolidge are the fourth generation of the John Comins family of Woburn, Mass. The brothers moved to the Eddington area within a year of each other 1802-03. Supposedly all four brothers lived in Maine for a bit, but only these two remained and raised their families here.”

That makes two Comins lines for Ruth Perry back to “Woburn John.”

My Comins people are back a bit further in my family tree.

My great-great-grandmother on my dad’s side, Mary (Cummings) Bennett Lord, was born 1859 in Greenville. Her father was Silas, son of William Cummings, son of Deacon Lemuel Comins, who was the second permanent settler of Greene in 1775.

Mary Cummings’ first husband, Prosper Alvarus Bennett, was himself the son of Mary Comins, daughter of Ebenezer and Tamar (Lander) Comins of Parkman. Ebenezer was the son of Solomon, who also was a son to Deacon Lemuel Comins. (Prosper has an extra generation in his line back to Lemuel, so he and wife Mary were second cousins, once removed.)

My twice-ancestor Lemuel was a son to Jacob Comins, but not by second wife Huldah Cooldidge. Rather, Lemuel was the son of Jacob and third wife Elizabeth (Eddy). Yes, Eddy.

Jacob, who was a Comins, didn’t come to Eddington, but he had a wife who was an Eddy – certainly a distant relation to Jonathan Eddy.

Back to the Comins lines. So how are I and Ruth Perry related? Let’s look at one way.

We’ll take my line through Mary Cummings, back eight generations to Jacob. And we’ll take Ruth’s line through Coolidge Comins, back seven generations to Jacob.

We’d be sixth cousins, once removed. Except we’re descended from different wives of Jacob, so that would be sixth “half-cousins,” once removed.

Keep in mind that Ruth has two lines back to Jacob – and I have two lines, so we are cousins four times, even though our Comins forebears came into Maine at different times, settling in different areas of the state.

I was privileged to visit my uncle Carroll Moore last fall when he was in a Bangor hospital. The last time I saw him we were there with my aunt Joyce, my cousins John and Jeff, and Jeff’s wife, Glenda.

For me, that makes for a special memory of Uncle Carroll, who died on Jan. 15 in Abbot, where he was born and lived.

I am sure he has joined my dad, Dinty, in Heaven, where a sign on their corner now says, “Gone Fishin’.”

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