Monday, December 1, 2014

52 Ancestors: #45 Harriett Elizabeth Seavey (1847?-1925)



Harriett Elizabeth Seavey, my great grand aunt, was born on this date around 1847 in Bridgton, Maine. Her father was Jonathan Seavey. The record of her birth, giving her birth year as 1846, states that her mother was Mary, meaning Mary G. Blake, Jonathan's first wife.




There's a problem with this record, however. Mary G. Blake died February 9, 1845, if her tombstone is to be believed.


1845 was an important year in Harriett's father life. He lost his first wife, Mary, and married a second time Harriet Cross Libby. The first child from this union appears to be Harriett Elizabeth.  Whether she was born in 1845 (as documented in the 1900 U.S. Census), in 1846 (as in the old birth record, but with the wrong mother), or in 1847 (as calculated from her tombstone and the 1850 U.S. Census) is open for debate.

If Harriett was the child of Jonathan Seavey and Harriet Cross Libby, she was the first of seven children, and their first daughter.

Harriett spent most of her single life as a housekeeper in the Bridgton home of Luther Billings. It wasn't until she was 40 years old, in 1886, that she became the second wife of a Sweden, Maine, man named Reuben Morrison.

Harriett and Reuben, who lived their whole lives in Bridgton, had one child, a son Harold, on April 13, 1887.

Reuben passed away in 1907. Harriett remained a widow another 18 years, until she died in 1925.

They are buried side by side in the Ingalls Hill Cemetery in Bridgton.





Sources:

1850; Census Place: Bridgton, Cumberland, Maine; Roll: M432_251; Page: 291A; Image: 279.

1860; Census Place: Bridgton, Cumberland, Maine; Roll: M653_437; Page: 52; Image: 741; Family History Library Film: 803437.

1870; Census Place: Bridgton, Cumberland, Maine; Roll: M593_539; Page: 16B; Image: 37; Family History Library Film: 552038.

1880; Census Place: Bridgton, Cumberland, Maine; Roll: 477; Family History Film: 1254477; Page: 44C; Enumeration District: 023; Image: 0338.

1900; Census Place: Bridgton, Cumberland, Maine; Roll: 589; Page: 8A; Enumeration District: 0035; FHL microfilm: 1240589.

1910; Census Place: Bridgton, Cumberland, Maine; Roll: T624_538; Page: 2B; Enumeration District: 0041; FHL microfilm: 1374551.

1920; Census Place: Bridgton, Cumberland, Maine; Roll: T625_641; Page: 7A; Enumeration District: 2; Image: 1090.

Ancestry.com. Maine, Birth Records, 1621-1922 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010.

Harriett E. Seavey tombstone,  Ingalls Hill Cemetery, Bridgton (Cumberland County), Maine; photographed by Pamela  Schaffner on 31 July 2013.

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This is the 45th in a series, “52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks,” coordinated by Amy Johnson Crow at

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