Mappy Monday ~ The Lost Cemetery on Pig Knoll in Scarborough, Maine

My 6th great grandparents, Edward and Sarah (Mills) Skillings are buried in a "lost cemetery." Pig Knoll lies along the present Running Hill Road in Scarborough, Maine, a two-lane route located near the present Maine Mall and the Portland International Jetport.  It is 167 feet above sea level, is entirely overgrown and dwarfed by the commercial development surrounding it. There is no evidence that it was ever used as a burial ground.

Edward Skillings had acquired about 110 acres in this part of Scarborough in the 1730's. This land included plots located near the crest of Running Hill. He was at times both a farmer and a fisherman. He had married Sarah Mills in Kittery, Maine in the early 1730's. She was born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, the daughter of Benjamin Mills and Lydia Fernald. They attended the Scarborough Congregational Church. Edward and Sarah had 13 children, all born in Scarborough.

Edward died in Scarborough on November 3, 1779, possibly of smallpox. There is no record of when his wife Sarah died. Both were buried on Pig Knoll.

Pig Knoll (43.6301 N - 70.3589 W)

Sources:

Descendants of Thomas and Deborah (?) Skillings of Cumberland Co, Maine (http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~arlene/Skillings/sources.htm#f418b

Find-a-Grave memorials for Edward and Sarah (http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gsr&GScid=2368981

Henley, Thomas Shaw, Descendants of Thomas Skillin of Falmouth (Now Portland), Maine and Allied Familes. (Tavares, Florida, March 2010).

Libby, Charles Thornton. The Libby Family in America, 1602-1881 (Portland, B. Thurston and Co., 1881), p. 83.

Map:

http://www.mountainzone.com/mountains/detail.asp?fid=7758856

Friday's Faces From the Past ~ Everett Deyarmond Family in Burnside 1953

The handwriting above this picture is my great grandmother's, Melvina Jane Hamilton Bustin (1886-1974). Everett Deyamond (1876-1942) was her cousin, she being the daughter of Peter Suther Hamilton (1852-1929), and Everett being the son of Margaret Rebecca Hamilton (1857-1937). Burnside is a small community in the Stewiacke Valley of Nova Scotia.

Having come across this wonderful "family gathering" photograph, I sent it to Judy from the Stewiacke Valley Museum Facebook page.  She kindly passed it on to one of the people in the photograph, a young girl in the photo, Mrs. Freda MacKay Rogers. Mrs. Rogers identified everyone in the picture, and also was able to date the photograph at 1953 or 1954.

Here is an alphabetical list, by surname, of everyone in the picture:

Berkelow, Maria Deyarmond

Deyarmond, Adela Roode

Deyarmond, Art

Deyarmond, Dick

Deyarmond, Eldridge

Deyarmond, Frank

Deyarmond, Jean Cox

Deyarmond, Lance

Deyarmond, Lester

Deyarmond, Mary Graham

Deyarmond, Terry

Deyarmond, Wayne

Fisher, Curtis

Fisher, Velva Deyarmond

Goff, Doris Whidden

Graham, Betty Deyarmond

Graham, Gordon

Hamilton, Albert

Hamilton, Stella

Johnson, Ella Deyarmond

Johnson, Herman

Johnson, Von

MacKay, Alice Deyarmond

MacKay, Ian

MacKay, Freda

MacKay, Norman

MacKay, Robert

Stevenson, Deanna

Stevenson, Laura Deyarmond

Stevenson, Linda

Stevenson, Lloyd

Whidden, Foster

Whidden, Frances

Whidden, Gary

Whidden, Harry

Whidden, Nettie Deyarmond

Whidden Philip

Whidden, Roy

Albert Hamilton and Stella Hamilton are my great great uncle and aunt, respectively, siblings of my great grandmother, although, in one way or another, I am related to all 38 people in this picture.

Bustin's Fine Furniture, Ltd. of Saint John

My daughter, my mother, my son, my dad, and me at
Bustin's Furniture
Summer 2000

In my start-and-stop genealogy journey, one high point was the trip I took to Canada in 2000, with my two children and my parents. On my list of places to visit was Bustin's Fine Furniture in Saint John, New Brunswick. 

At the time of this visit, no one in my family (at least of those still living) knew how our Bustin line connected to this Bustin family. I was hopeful that someone in the store with family ties could give me some clues. Unfortunately, although they were as welcoming and friendly as could be, they did not have any ideas.

It has only been recently that I have connected the dots, so to speak.

On the store's website, under the heading called  "Our Story," the history of the business provided valuable genealogical facts.

Charles Leon Bustin (1870-1927) and Sam Withers opened Bustins & Withers on 99 Germain Street in Saint John in May of 1905.

Charles L. Bustin's father was the 2nd son of Hugh Bustin (1820-1900). Hugh Bustin and my 2nd great grandfather, Samuel James Bustin (1818-1897) were brothers.

Hugh Bustin died on this date in 1900.

Bustin's Furniture, 99 Germain St., Saint John, New Brunswick

Tombstone Tuesday ~ Patriot John Morse of Gray, Maine

John Morse

Born in Falmouth (now Portland), Maine

August 3, 1746

Died Gray, Maine

June 20, 1826

I found his grave this summer in the Gray Corner Cemetery,

 in Gray, Maine.

"Blessed are the pure in heart for
 they shall see God."

John Morse, my 5th great grandfather, served as a private in Capt. Moses Merrill's Company, in Col. Edmund Phinney's 31st Regiment of Foot, from his enlistment on May 15, 1775 to July 5, 1775.

Leonicea (nee Riggs) was his second wife, and was awarded a widow's pension in 1853. The pension file, #W27871, includes births and deaths from the family Bible, which may help me prove my lineage for membership in the DAR.

Sources:

Ancestry.com. U.S., Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty-Land Warrant Application Files, 1800-1900 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010.

Original data: Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty-Land Warrant Application Files (NARA microfilm publication M804, 2,670 rolls). Records of the Department of Veterans Affairs, Record Group 15. National Archives, Washington, D.C. Pension Application No. W27871.

Ancestry.com. Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors in the War of the Revolution, 17 Vols.[database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 1998.

Original data: Secretary of the Commonwealth. Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors in the War of the Revolution. Vol. II, p.101. Boston, MA, USA: Wright and Potter Printing Co., 1896.