David A. Smalley's Ancestors
We recently received a package from Elissa Boulier, who is the niece of Grammie Peg Smalley, or Ethel Smalley. It had several photos of David's parents, and Grandparents, Uncle Frank, and even a couple of David himself.
I thought that the best way to make these available to family members was to write a blog, and include the pictures. The pictures are priceless, and we are so thankful to have received them. As most of you know, we lost all the Smalley photos in the fire of 2004.
Also included in the box was a Family history letter, written by Fred Willis Smalley, Father of Frank H. Smalley and Great Grandfather of David Smalley. This letter is a treasure as you will see. He wrote it to Frank and Peg Smalley when he was 91 years old! He wanted to be sure to pass on the family history, before it was lost forever. We should all write such a letter, so the fullness of out past will be available for the future generations.
I have copied the letter just as it was written by Fred Willis Smalley. If you are my children, he would be your Great Great Grandfather.
Here is his letter........
Smalley Family Tree Letter
Written by Fred Willis Smalley- 1875-1972
to Frank H. and Peg (Ethel) Smalley.
(Fred was 91 when this letter was written - I will try to type it as it is written)
Winthrop June 21, 1966
Dear Frank and Peg,
For several years, I have had it in my mind to make a family tree. But never seemed to get around to it. So ^as you and Peg are my eldest children, I am going to the best (of) my ability try to give you a quickie family tree, my dear Parents were too busy or perhaps never thought about it to give me much information, but from Father and Mother and mostly from my Dear Grandmother Harrington, who Brother is named for.
She was one of the best, always willing to help others asking very little reward. And it brings tears to my eyes, when I think of the many happy days with Grandmother and I alone in the kitchen, except brother Tommie your uncle, in the little Box cradle, Grandmother busy knitting, one foot rocking the cradle, and smoking her little old pipe, and singing a lullaby, with the kitchen clock ticking and the canary putting in a note here and there, and the old black iron teakettle steaming away for our cup of tea, was a sumphony sweet to my ears.
Grandmother was a nurse of the old school, her fee was high, but she was worth it, $5.00 a week. Duties, taking care of an expectant mother before and after and other little jobs such as the family washing and ironing, sweeping, dusting & mopping kitchen floor, airing and making the beds, cooking and serving 21 meals a week, besides a tray for the patient, dishwashing, if there were children, take care of them, and if of school age, get them dressed and off to school. Keep the stoves going with coal or wood in fall or winter. When she got those things done she could take it easy.
I remember well back in Pittsfield Mrs. Dennison Walker the mill owner’s wife engaged her for two weeks, and she was perswaded to stay two years at $10.00 per week. Grandmother, always fro the time I was old enough to know her until her last years, always wore her hair in a round pug, always the same style dresses, black cloth top shoes, elastic sides, black dress and bonet for traveling, not a tooth in her mouth, Father tried to perswade her to have false teeth, but no use,
Grandmother was one of 13 children, her Father John Temple and her Mother Mary Watts Temple settled deep in the woods, in the town of Montville Maine, not too far from Belfast, my Great Uncle John (I did not ask where they came from-crossed out) made a clearing and built a log cabin, and the 13 children were all born in the cabin, no Doctor, never had one except one time a case of scarlet fever, he must have built the cabin and the huge fireplace himself. Grandmother never told me and I never thought to ask.
My Great Uncle John was a Blacksmith and depended on woodsmen and lumbermen and others for work. I do not know the size of the log cabin, but would imagine about 24 x 30 feet square.
The Father and mother and the girls slept in the one room, a calico curtain divided the Parents and girls room, the boys slept in the loft reached by a ladder. The fireplace burned 4ft. Logs or larger 365 days and nights year after year, never went out summer or winter. They had no matches in those days, only a tinder box. For lights, the boys selected pitch pine logs and sawed them into 1ft. Pieces and split them into sticks, an inch or so square. They were kept near the fire place and when it began to get dark they would light some of the sticks and stand them in some kind of holder.
Grandmother said, all the boiling and stewing was done in the kettle or Roasting was done on the crane that would swing in and out. The baking was done in the sheet iron oven set before the fire.
Grandmother said the oven baked as good as any range oven. Pies, Gingerbread, Corn Bread, Cake, and Grandmother said the boys could make anything they set out to, even violins, and they taught themselves to play them,
Grandmother was married at 16 but I do not know when she left the cabin but she was 13 when she had her first pair of shoes, summertime they went barefoot and fall and winter the girls wore Moccasins made from the tops of the boys or Father’s high boots
Grandmother earned her first pair of shoes the hard way, she went into the woods where the boys had chopped cordwood and picked up the hardwood chips and burned them, Then when she got 6 or 8 barrels of ashes her Father and Grandmother took them to the soap factory and got 75 cents and drove to the Village and got her first pair of shoes and sunday she would go to church she would go barefoot till she got near the church and then would put on her shoes and stockins and took them off when she came out and go home barefoot.
The family consisted of 8 boys and 5 girls
John Temple Bar Harbor or Birch Harbor
Frank Temple Rockland wife Samantha
James Temple Detroit wife Clara
Levi
Lorenzo
Madison
Turner
Melvin Down the Lane Detroit
I only knew Frank & Samantha, James & Clara,
and Melvin, Sarah, Clara, Jane &Grandmother Lucy.
_____________________________________________________
Girls
Sarah Mrs. Frank Bowen Truckman & farmer (Belfast)
Clara Mrs. William York farmer (Troy)
Jane Mrs. Fred Hall farmer (Detroit)
Abigail Mrs.___ Hart
Lucy Mrs Jiles Harrington stage driver Rockland-Bangor
My grandmother lived most of the time with us.
_____________________________________________________The 8 boys all went with the first Maine Regiment of the Civil War in 1861 and all came back without a misshap.
John Temple Jr. also a Blacksmith settled in Bar Harbor or Birch Harbor. As far as I know he had Louis Temple and Adella Temple-Mrs. Captain Frank Miller.
Would like to have you & Peg Maud Paine Dell and me go to Mauds at Bar Harbor and Maud would drive us to Birch Harbor and make ourselves known to my second cousin Louis and family.
We have written to each other quite a few times, Maud took Del & me over there about 50 miles but we missed seeing them, he must be between Brother and you for age I should say about 60. I think he may be able to give me added information that maybe I missed talking with Grandmother Lucy. Adella Temple Miller is my Adella’s namesake.
John Temple Jr. like his Father a Blacksmith
Frank Temple- carpenter
This is about all on Mother’s side of the family.
On Father’s side..
_______________________
My Grandfather David Clark Smalley
As far as I know he was born in Rockland and was in the Tailoring business, and Father was partner, both were Draftsmen and Patternmakers and both measured the customers for suits or overcoats, then drafted the paper patterns and then cut the suits by them. In those days , before Civil War Days, there were few if any men Tailors who could sew, not Father or Grandfather , all sewing was done by women, They employed 33 Girls sewing coats, pants and vests & overcoats, Father did not say but they must have had a Pressman, as Father did at Pittsfield. Herbert Hunter was his pressman.
Grandfather for some reason went to Vermont and was there quite a few years, I suppose in the tailoring business, and he married Mary Carpenter a very beautiful woman by her picture and she had lovely black hair, as did Father I never knew but often thought that perhaps she was French as she lived near Canada, the name could have been Carpentier.
Grandfather and she had 6 children, a girl Rose, a son Chellis, Father, John Willis Smalley, and Fred Woodbury Smalley, and two more that died in early childhood. Grandmother died very young with consumption, sometime later Grandfather, D. C. Smalley married Mary Dean, of Rockland.
The Civil War ruined their tailoring business when they were both very well off, they had a very large stock of goods and trimmings, and not many customers left to buy clothes or care about clothes, so as they were honest and respected merchants, both masons and Odd Fellows and church members, Grandfather was a Deacon, so instead of failing and keeping what assets they had they tried to keep all their bills paid hoping the war would soon end, but the war dragged on 4 years, and they lost everything. They had good homes, but they lost them. So Grandfather went over to Waldoboro and took care of an old German couple, and the farm would be theirs when the old couple passed on, but they almost outlived Grandfather. It was and still is a nice farm, the house is built of brick and the rooms are large and the Lutheran Church people used it for a church on Sunday. Grandfather had two houses that he had in Rockland in more prosperous times and the pair did the farm work, a good many farmers had on the side a cooper shop and made lime barrels and grandfather used to haul them over to Rockland to the lime kilns, making lime was a big industry for Rockland. I think Waldoboro is about ten miles from Rockland and Grandfather hauled the lime barrels over there for 10 cents per barrel 30 barrels was a load $3.00 20 miles over and back. Father used to hire a horse and carriage or rather a Carryall and drive over to Grandfathers for our vacations it was a two days drive each way and the horse or sometimes 2 horses had to step on the gas to make it. We used to stop over night at Washington which is about half way, we enjoyed the nice little country Hotel, the beds, and the food was very good.
My Uncle Fred was a Blacksmith and used to shoe horses for the Bar Harbor Elite. No one told me but I think he must have been hired by my great Uncle John temple. Grandfather and Grandmother Smalley had 2 daughters who of course were Father’s half sisters. Carrie the eldest married George Flanders also of Waldoboro & Nora married Leslie Ludwick or Ludrick of Waldoboro and was a Barber and had a Barber Shop at Thomaston, one of Aunt Carrie’s daughters live quite near us n Winthrop Chester Ave. her name is Gladis Bailie and her ^older sister Eva Miller live in Everet or Malden.
I have a second cousin in Birch Harbor Maine Louis Temple.
My Grandmother Lucy Ann Temple Harrington would be his Aunt. We have corresponded several times but have never met. He has one daughter in Lynn Mass and one in Swamscott Mass but I don’t know their names.
On your mother’s side her Father’s name was Mellitius Jackson and your Grandmother was Phobe Jane Draper Jackson and Mr. Jackson was married 3 times the first wife I do not know her name but anyway they had 2 children. ( I can’t think what their names were , but his second wife has a sister to Pheobe Jane Draper.) (that part was crossed out)
Edward was the son and Eva the daughter
the second marriage was Henry Jackson (no children)
and Lillian Jackson ^ Blanchard William
William Blanchard Jr.
Carrie “ “
Perlie “ ‘
______________________________________________
Maud Oscar’s wife Pane
& 1 daughter Maud
Wm. Blanchard Jr. & wife
Have 3 children 2 boy 1 girl Real Estate business Yarmouth
I have copied the letter just as it was written by Fred Willis Smalley. If you are my children, he would be your Great Great Grandfather.
Here is his letter........
Smalley Family Tree Letter
Written by Fred Willis Smalley- 1875-1972
to Frank H. and Peg (Ethel) Smalley.
(Fred was 91 when this letter was written - I will try to type it as it is written)
Winthrop June 21, 1966
Dear Frank and Peg,
For several years, I have had it in my mind to make a family tree. But never seemed to get around to it. So ^as you and Peg are my eldest children, I am going to the best (of) my ability try to give you a quickie family tree, my dear Parents were too busy or perhaps never thought about it to give me much information, but from Father and Mother and mostly from my Dear Grandmother Harrington, who Brother is named for.
She was one of the best, always willing to help others asking very little reward. And it brings tears to my eyes, when I think of the many happy days with Grandmother and I alone in the kitchen, except brother Tommie your uncle, in the little Box cradle, Grandmother busy knitting, one foot rocking the cradle, and smoking her little old pipe, and singing a lullaby, with the kitchen clock ticking and the canary putting in a note here and there, and the old black iron teakettle steaming away for our cup of tea, was a sumphony sweet to my ears.
Grandmother was a nurse of the old school, her fee was high, but she was worth it, $5.00 a week. Duties, taking care of an expectant mother before and after and other little jobs such as the family washing and ironing, sweeping, dusting & mopping kitchen floor, airing and making the beds, cooking and serving 21 meals a week, besides a tray for the patient, dishwashing, if there were children, take care of them, and if of school age, get them dressed and off to school. Keep the stoves going with coal or wood in fall or winter. When she got those things done she could take it easy.
I remember well back in Pittsfield Mrs. Dennison Walker the mill owner’s wife engaged her for two weeks, and she was perswaded to stay two years at $10.00 per week. Grandmother, always fro the time I was old enough to know her until her last years, always wore her hair in a round pug, always the same style dresses, black cloth top shoes, elastic sides, black dress and bonet for traveling, not a tooth in her mouth, Father tried to perswade her to have false teeth, but no use,
Grandmother was one of 13 children, her Father John Temple and her Mother Mary Watts Temple settled deep in the woods, in the town of Montville Maine, not too far from Belfast, my Great Uncle John (I did not ask where they came from-crossed out) made a clearing and built a log cabin, and the 13 children were all born in the cabin, no Doctor, never had one except one time a case of scarlet fever, he must have built the cabin and the huge fireplace himself. Grandmother never told me and I never thought to ask.
My Great Uncle John was a Blacksmith and depended on woodsmen and lumbermen and others for work. I do not know the size of the log cabin, but would imagine about 24 x 30 feet square.
The Father and mother and the girls slept in the one room, a calico curtain divided the Parents and girls room, the boys slept in the loft reached by a ladder. The fireplace burned 4ft. Logs or larger 365 days and nights year after year, never went out summer or winter. They had no matches in those days, only a tinder box. For lights, the boys selected pitch pine logs and sawed them into 1ft. Pieces and split them into sticks, an inch or so square. They were kept near the fire place and when it began to get dark they would light some of the sticks and stand them in some kind of holder.
Grandmother said, all the boiling and stewing was done in the kettle or Roasting was done on the crane that would swing in and out. The baking was done in the sheet iron oven set before the fire.
Grandmother said the oven baked as good as any range oven. Pies, Gingerbread, Corn Bread, Cake, and Grandmother said the boys could make anything they set out to, even violins, and they taught themselves to play them,
Grandmother was married at 16 but I do not know when she left the cabin but she was 13 when she had her first pair of shoes, summertime they went barefoot and fall and winter the girls wore Moccasins made from the tops of the boys or Father’s high boots
Grandmother earned her first pair of shoes the hard way, she went into the woods where the boys had chopped cordwood and picked up the hardwood chips and burned them, Then when she got 6 or 8 barrels of ashes her Father and Grandmother took them to the soap factory and got 75 cents and drove to the Village and got her first pair of shoes and sunday she would go to church she would go barefoot till she got near the church and then would put on her shoes and stockins and took them off when she came out and go home barefoot.
The family consisted of 8 boys and 5 girls
John Temple Bar Harbor or Birch Harbor
Frank Temple Rockland wife Samantha
James Temple Detroit wife Clara
Levi
Lorenzo
Madison
Turner
Melvin Down the Lane Detroit
I only knew Frank & Samantha, James & Clara,
and Melvin, Sarah, Clara, Jane &Grandmother Lucy.
_____________________________________________________
Girls
Sarah Mrs. Frank Bowen Truckman & farmer (Belfast)
Clara Mrs. William York farmer (Troy)
Jane Mrs. Fred Hall farmer (Detroit)
Abigail Mrs.___ Hart
Lucy Mrs Jiles Harrington stage driver Rockland-Bangor
My grandmother lived most of the time with us.
_____________________________________________________The 8 boys all went with the first Maine Regiment of the Civil War in 1861 and all came back without a misshap.
John Temple Jr. also a Blacksmith settled in Bar Harbor or Birch Harbor. As far as I know he had Louis Temple and Adella Temple-Mrs. Captain Frank Miller.
Would like to have you & Peg Maud Paine Dell and me go to Mauds at Bar Harbor and Maud would drive us to Birch Harbor and make ourselves known to my second cousin Louis and family.
We have written to each other quite a few times, Maud took Del & me over there about 50 miles but we missed seeing them, he must be between Brother and you for age I should say about 60. I think he may be able to give me added information that maybe I missed talking with Grandmother Lucy. Adella Temple Miller is my Adella’s namesake.
John Temple Jr. like his Father a Blacksmith
Frank Temple- carpenter
This is about all on Mother’s side of the family.
On Father’s side..
_______________________
My Grandfather David Clark Smalley
As far as I know he was born in Rockland and was in the Tailoring business, and Father was partner, both were Draftsmen and Patternmakers and both measured the customers for suits or overcoats, then drafted the paper patterns and then cut the suits by them. In those days , before Civil War Days, there were few if any men Tailors who could sew, not Father or Grandfather , all sewing was done by women, They employed 33 Girls sewing coats, pants and vests & overcoats, Father did not say but they must have had a Pressman, as Father did at Pittsfield. Herbert Hunter was his pressman.
Grandfather for some reason went to Vermont and was there quite a few years, I suppose in the tailoring business, and he married Mary Carpenter a very beautiful woman by her picture and she had lovely black hair, as did Father I never knew but often thought that perhaps she was French as she lived near Canada, the name could have been Carpentier.
Grandfather and she had 6 children, a girl Rose, a son Chellis, Father, John Willis Smalley, and Fred Woodbury Smalley, and two more that died in early childhood. Grandmother died very young with consumption, sometime later Grandfather, D. C. Smalley married Mary Dean, of Rockland.
The Civil War ruined their tailoring business when they were both very well off, they had a very large stock of goods and trimmings, and not many customers left to buy clothes or care about clothes, so as they were honest and respected merchants, both masons and Odd Fellows and church members, Grandfather was a Deacon, so instead of failing and keeping what assets they had they tried to keep all their bills paid hoping the war would soon end, but the war dragged on 4 years, and they lost everything. They had good homes, but they lost them. So Grandfather went over to Waldoboro and took care of an old German couple, and the farm would be theirs when the old couple passed on, but they almost outlived Grandfather. It was and still is a nice farm, the house is built of brick and the rooms are large and the Lutheran Church people used it for a church on Sunday. Grandfather had two houses that he had in Rockland in more prosperous times and the pair did the farm work, a good many farmers had on the side a cooper shop and made lime barrels and grandfather used to haul them over to Rockland to the lime kilns, making lime was a big industry for Rockland. I think Waldoboro is about ten miles from Rockland and Grandfather hauled the lime barrels over there for 10 cents per barrel 30 barrels was a load $3.00 20 miles over and back. Father used to hire a horse and carriage or rather a Carryall and drive over to Grandfathers for our vacations it was a two days drive each way and the horse or sometimes 2 horses had to step on the gas to make it. We used to stop over night at Washington which is about half way, we enjoyed the nice little country Hotel, the beds, and the food was very good.
My Uncle Fred was a Blacksmith and used to shoe horses for the Bar Harbor Elite. No one told me but I think he must have been hired by my great Uncle John temple. Grandfather and Grandmother Smalley had 2 daughters who of course were Father’s half sisters. Carrie the eldest married George Flanders also of Waldoboro & Nora married Leslie Ludwick or Ludrick of Waldoboro and was a Barber and had a Barber Shop at Thomaston, one of Aunt Carrie’s daughters live quite near us n Winthrop Chester Ave. her name is Gladis Bailie and her ^older sister Eva Miller live in Everet or Malden.
I have a second cousin in Birch Harbor Maine Louis Temple.
My Grandmother Lucy Ann Temple Harrington would be his Aunt. We have corresponded several times but have never met. He has one daughter in Lynn Mass and one in Swamscott Mass but I don’t know their names.
On your mother’s side her Father’s name was Mellitius Jackson and your Grandmother was Phobe Jane Draper Jackson and Mr. Jackson was married 3 times the first wife I do not know her name but anyway they had 2 children. ( I can’t think what their names were , but his second wife has a sister to Pheobe Jane Draper.) (that part was crossed out)
Edward was the son and Eva the daughter
the second marriage was Henry Jackson (no children)
and Lillian Jackson ^ Blanchard William
William Blanchard Jr.
Carrie “ “
Perlie “ ‘
______________________________________________
Maud Oscar’s wife Pane
& 1 daughter Maud
Wm. Blanchard Jr. & wife
Have 3 children 2 boy 1 girl Real Estate business Yarmouth
Fred Willis Smalley
author of the above letter.
This is wonderful. I'm so glad you did this! We should have all this great family history online so we can all easily reference it if we need to. And who knows we may discover some family this way! :)
ReplyDeleteVery nice job Sooze,
ReplyDeleteThank you, love David