Digging Down East: Leighton Enoch

Showing posts with label Leighton Enoch. Show all posts

Saturday, December 13, 2014

52 Ancestors: #48 Mark Samuel Leighton (1885-1970)

Mark Samuel Leighton, my great grandfather, was born on this date in 1885 in Springfield, Massachusetts, the second child of Enoch Oscar Morse Leighton and Lillian Brackley, and their only son.

By the time Mark was 14 years old, in the 1900 Census, he was living on Sherwood Street, in Portland, Maine, with his mother, his older sister Maud, his grandmother, Mattie Crilley, and a 16-year old cousin, Alice Lovell (transcribed as Lover), the daughter of his aunt Louisa.

Five years later, the two first cousins, Mark and Alice found it necessary to marry, as Alice was expecting a child. They traveled to Berlin, New Hampshire, to do so.

The marriage appears to have been simply a formality, to legitimize my grandmother's birth. Mark did not stay with Alice, but instead seems to have had a desire to abandon his daughter Mattie Louise, who was born January 5, 1906. He was listed in the 1910 Portland (Me.) City Directory, a carpenter on the Grand Trunk Railroad, as having moved to Winnipeg, Canada.

Once in Canada, Mark became a Canadian citizen, and went to work for the Canadian Pacific Railroad. After a few years, he appears to have reconsidered, and filed a Declaration of Intent to become a U.S. Citizen, but he never followed through with it.

He did, however, return to the States in time to serve in the United States Navy during World War I. He remained stateside, serving on ships in Boston and Hingham, Massachusetts and New London, Connecticut.

After the war, he married Corrinnabelle Hicks, another Navy veteran, in Durham, Maine, on May 21, 1921. Together, Mark and Corrinna had four daughters and a son:

Merlyn, b. 1923

Arlene, b. 1927

Jeannette, b. 1928

Bertha "Betty", b. 1933

Donald, b. 1940

Mark, Corrinna, and their family settled in the Durham, Maine, area, with Mark working at various carpentry jobs. During the Depression, he worked for the WPA. According to his obituary, he was also a shipfitter at the Bath Iron Works.

Sometime in the 1960's, Corrinna extended an invitation to my grandmother and my father's young family. I have a memory of attending a large summer gathering as a child, of meeting Corrinna, but not my great grandfather. Perhaps this was some kind of reconciliation, since, up to that time, my grandmother had not been acknowledged as a half-sister. Being almost 20 years older, she was often referred to as "Aunt Mattie."

Mark passed away on July 7, 1970, at the VA Hospital (Togus), in Augusta, Maine, and is buried next to his wife Corrinna, in the Maine Veterans Memorial Cemetery, in Augusta.

Sources:

1900 US Census; Census Place: Portland, Cumberland, Maine; Roll: 591; Page: 13B; Enumeration District: 0077; FHL microfilm: 1240591.

1920 US Census; Census Place: Portland Ward 9, Cumberland, Maine; Roll: T625_640; Page: 18A; Enumeration District: 62; Image: 1020.

1930 US Census; Census Place: Falmouth, Cumberland, Maine; Roll: 830; Page: 2B; Enumeration District: 12; Image: 355.0; FHL microfilm: 2340565.

1940 US Census; Census Place: Durham, Androscoggin, Maine; Roll: T627_1469; Page: 1B; Enumeration District: 1-21.

Ancestry.com, Maine Military Men, 1917-1918 (Provo, UT, USA, The Generations Network, Inc., 2000), www.ancestry.com, Database online.. Record for Mark S. Leighton.

Ancestry.com. New Hampshire, Marriage Records Index, 1637-1947 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011.

Ancestry.com. U.S. City Directories, 1821-1989 (Beta) [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011.

Maine Department of Health and Welfare, certificate of death 70-05916 (1970), Mark Samuel Leighton; Office of Vital Records, Augusta.

“Maine, Marriage Records, 1705-1922,” Ancestry.com(http://ancestry.com : accessed 20 Jan 2013), marriage record image, Mark Samuel Leighton and Corrinnabelle Hicks, 21 May 1921.

"Maine, State Archive Collections, 1718-1957," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/KG9Q-CRN : accessed 9 December 2014), Mark Samuel Leighton, 11 Jun 1917; citing Military Service, United States, State Archives, Augusta.

Maine State Archives; Cultural Building, 84 State House Station, Augusta, ME 04333-0084; 1908-1922 Vital Records; Roll #: 33.

Mark S Leighton tombstone, Maine Veterans Memorial Cemetery, Augusta (Kennebec County), Maine; photographed by Pamela Schaffner on 22 August 2011.

“Mark S. Leighton,” obituary, Portland (Maine) Press Herald, 9 July 1970.

Mark Samuel Leighton declaration of intention (1916), naturalization file no. 1470, District of Maine.

Marriage certificate, prepared by Isabella S. Macduff, Clergyman. September 24, 1905. Berlin, New Hampshire.

National Cemetery Administration, U.S. Veterans Gravesites, ca.1775-2006 (Provo, UT, USA, The Generations Network, Inc., 2006), www.ancestry.com, Database online.. Record for Mark Samuel Leighton.

"New Hampshire, Marriage Records, 1637-1947," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/FLHP-B7L : accessed 06 Oct 2013), Mark Leighton and Alice N. Lovell and , 1905.

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This is the 48th in a series, “52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks,” coordinated by Amy Johnson Crow at

No Story Too Small.

Monday, December 17, 2012

Lillian Leighton's home in the 1924 Portland Tax Records

The Portland, Maine, 1924 Tax Records were created as part of a city-wide tax reevaluation. The 2 3/4" x 4" original black and white photographs provide extraordinary documentation of the appearance and condition of every taxable property in the city at that time. The accompanying tax forms provide equally valuable information, including the use of the property, the original building materials and finishes and the property's assessed value as of 1924. On the back of each form, a pencil sketch illustrates the size and shape of the building footprint on the property.

The collection consists of 131 books containing approximately 30,000 pages, each page recording a single property (properties with more than one building will generally have a page for each building). The records were kept in a cabinet in the Portland tax assessor's office in City Hall until 2009. They are now being scanned by a team of volunteers to provide greater public access while allowing the original documents to go into proper archival storage.

These records are now available at Maine Memory Network.

Recently, I was fortunate to find the tax record of 221 Sherwood St., Portland, Maine, the home of my 2nd great grandmother, Lillian Brackley Leighton (1864-1954), and her son Mark, my paternal great grandfather.

1920 Census

East Deering is the easternmost neighborhood of the city of Portland. The neighborhood is situated between the Munjoy Hill and North Deering neighborhoods of the city, as well as the town of Falmouth. Much of the neighborhood has views of Casco Bay. The major throughways in East Deering are Washington Avenue and Veranda St.

According to this record, in 1924, this was an 8 year old residence, a frame house covered in clapboards. Its assessed value was $2,167, with a land value of $326. There was 1 tenant and 6 "rooms and bath."

By 1930, Mrs. Leighton was joined by her 15-year old grandson, Howard King, whose mother Maud has died in 1925. (The house had been re-numbered to 223).

1930 Census

By finding this record, I was able to solve a house picture mystery as well. The picture below is undated. But the pitch of the roof, the chimney, and the windows confirm that it is, in fact, 221 Sherwood St.

By sharpening, cropping and magnifying this picture, I can see an older woman on the porch, a young boy at the top of the steps, two women on the steps, and an older girl with a bicycle. My guess is that Mrs. Leighton is the older woman, and perhaps Howard is the young boy.

By 1940, Howard King, his first wife Phyllis Crozier, and his young son Rodney, were living at 223 Sherwood St., along with Lillian Leighton.

1940 Census

By searching the Cumberland County (Maine) Real Estate Records, I learned that Lillian sold the property to her grandson Howard in 1939 for one dollar.

The 1954 Portland City Directory told me that Lillian Leighton, widow of Enoch Leighton, lived in this house until she died.

This is what 221/223 Sherwood Street looks like today.

Sunday, July 15, 2012

Knock, Knock, Knockin' on Enoch's Grave ~ Sunday's Obituary

It all began innocently enough. Another grave to find, in another small Maine town. The Falmouth Historical Society proving not only to be the most difficult to locate, but the least helpful of those I visited during this trip, I stopped in at the Falmouth Memorial Library.

Having been a town librarian myself, I have a great love and respect for these enclaves of local lore, and Falmouth did not disappoint. There I found a copy of Death notices from Town of Cumberland, Maine, Annual Reports 1891-1960, wherein I found the listing for my ancestor:

Leighton, Enoch M. Apr 4, 1926 Falmouth 8o Ys. 6 Ms 18 ds.

It was off to the Town Office!

The extremely helpful staff there retrieved the 1926 Ledger from the safe upstairs, and there he was:

But, alas, no record of where he was buried.

So, it was back into the Portland Public Library to check the April 4-6, 1926 Press Herald on microfilm for a death notice or an obituary. BINGO!

Portland Press Herald, April 6, 1926, Page Three, col.1

After a brief visit to the Maine Historical Society, it was back in the car to head to Cumberland Center. Having tramped through 3 Falmouth cemeteries last summer, and feeling confident I had not found him there, I walked through the cemetery right where the Tuttle and Blanchard Roads meet, but to no avail. The graves in there were way too old. Next it was Moss Side, pictured above, where I again came up empty.

Then I re-read the death notice from the Press Herald.

Funeral services were at the Universalist Church, Cumberland Center, with interment at Cumberland Center. Could they be referring to the Cemetery, one I referred to as the Universalist Church Cemetery, that I had explored last summer on the Gray Road, where, as it turns out, Enoch' parents are buried?

I never found a headstone in that Universalist Cemetery for Enoch, my Great Great Leighton Grandfather. He may be there with no marker, my hunch about the cemetery could be wrong, or there may be another explanation. But this is not the end of the search!