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Samuel Page and Samuel Page II of Orono, Maine

2024-10-02T00:00:00-04:00

On November 21, 1829, Samuel Page and Harriet Wiggin, both of Orono, filed an intention to marry.¹ On August 30, 1830, Samuel Page 2d and Julia Dudley, both of Orono, filed an intention to marry.² Their censuses show that these two men were about the same age. Harriet's husband is 50 in 1850³, and Julia's is 48.⁴ These two men were probably first cousins–more on that later, maybe.

Earlier in Orono, Stephen Page and Annie Ayers had a son, Samuel, born 30 March 1801.⁵ Which of the two Samuels above, if either, was Stephen and Annie's son?

Sorting them out

The first time I looked at these families was at least 20 years ago and I remember that at the time I was certain that Harriet's husband was Stephen and Annie's son. I took another look about a week ago and couldn't for the life of me figure out why I thought so. Then I remembered that the probate records of Penobscot County, Maine, were online at familysearch. There I found the probate records of Stephen Page's estate in 1857.

Stephen died on January 4, 1857, and on March 2 his widow Jane requested that Samuel Page be made administrator.⁶ I think it is safe to assume that she asked her husband's son Samuel to handle the responsibility, and not a nephew. I am pretty sure this was Samuel Page who married Harriet Wiggin for two reasons.

A bit of negative evidence: there are a lot of documents in the file and not once is Samuel called Samuel 2nd. Nor does he ever sign his name as Samuel 2nd. I don't know if that proves anything–maybe they would have just assumed which Samuel they were dealing with. On the other hand, the Penobscot County land records are also online and they do refer to both Samuel and Samuel 2nd.
More important is the fact that at a court session held in May 1858 in connection with the estate, a Charles F Page appeared as a witness for the widow, Jane Page. If he testified his testimony either wasn't recorded or wasn't preserved, but he claimed a travel allowance for attending one day.⁷ Charles F Page was the son of Samuel Page and Harriet Wiggin. He was born about 1833 and is named in the household of Samuel and Harriet in 1850 and 1860.³^,⁸ Samuel calls him one of "my children" in his will written 4 April 1877.⁹ It's a lot more likely that Jane's lawyer would call her husband's grandson as a witness rather than his brother's grandson.

Then whose son was Samuel Page 2nd?

The short answer is I don't know. Based on his year of birth he is very likely a grandson of Joseph Page, one of the early settlers of the Orono area. Joseph had 4 sons: Joseph, James, Isaac, and the Stephen mentioned above. My money would be on the son Joseph as Samuel 2nd's father, since Samuel named his first son Joseph. But that is not enough evidence to say for sure.

Conclusion

For more on the Page family, see the Page and Paige tags in this section of the site, the Page and Paige surnames in the New England Families section, and the article Samuel Page II and Joseph Page, of Orono, Maine.

Footnotes

¹ "Maine Vital Records, 1670-1921", FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:Q28Q-HMM1), image 201, Entry for Samuel Page and Harriet Wiggin, 21 November 1829.

² Source: Town Records of Old Town, Maine. Microfilm at New England Historic and Genealogical Society. Section 2. Births, Deaths, Marriages and Misc. Town Records, 1827 - 1839 Marriages, starting on page 201.) The Page-Dudley record is on page 207.

³ 1850 Census, Maine, Penobscot, Orono, Series M432, Roll 264, Page 258, dwelling 295, family 393, "United States Census, 1850", FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:M6V3-62R : Fri Mar 08 01:03:38 UTC 2024), Entry for Samuel Page and Harriet Page, 1850.

⁴ 1850 Census, Maine, Penobscot, Orono, Maine, Penobscot, Orono, Series M432, Roll 264, Page 257A, dwelling 273, family 370. "United States Census, 1850", FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:M6VS-YG8), Entry for Martha McPheters and Saml Page, 1850.

⁵ Orono Town Records.

⁶ Penobscot. Probate Records 1816–1892, 1839, Probate Estate Case Files 1816–1892, 1839 (image 374). Currently available by doing a live text search at https://familysearch.org/en/labs.

⁷ Penobscot. Probate Records 1816–1892, 1839, Probate Estate Case Files 1816–1892, 1839 (image 379).

⁸ Maine, Penobscot, Orono, Veazie Post Office Series M653, Roll 446, Page 910, family 154, dwelling 154, "United States Census, 1860", FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MDCH-Z3B), Entry for Samuel Page and Harriet Page, 1860.

⁹ Penobscot. Probate Records 1816–1892, 1839, Probate Estate Case Files 1816–1892, 1839 (image 339).

Samuel Page II and Joseph Page, of Orono, Maine

2024-10-02T00:00:00-04:00

Working back through the Page family in Bangor and Orono, Maine, we come to Joseph Page, a railroad engineer who married Abigail Dudley. Those might not have been the most characteristic attributes of Joseph, but they help identify him among the other Joseph Pages in the area and in my records.

At any rate, when I started researching the family I arrived at the conclusion that he was the son of Samuel Page II and Julia/Judith Dudley. "Arrived at" describes the process, since I never found a birth record for Joseph or for any of Samuel II's children. So why did I put him in that family? For the following reasons:

Joseph's second marriage record, to Carrie (Baker) Emery in 1903 said his father's name was Samuel.¹
Joseph's censuses pointed to a birth about 1831. Joseph's first marriage was in 1854, meaning he'd probably be in his father's household in 1850. The 1850 household of Samuel Page II and Julia Page in Orono includes a son Joseph, age 19.²
There was another Samuel Page in Orono at the time–the husband of Harriet Wiggins. His 1840 household included a male between 5 and 10 who could be Joseph, but in 1850 we learn that Samuel and Harriet's 17 year old son was named Charles.³^,⁴
On that 1850 census, Samuel and Julia had a daughter named Eunice, age 8. She died in January 1860 and in August of that year Joseph named his newborn daughter Eunice.⁵^,⁶
On July 6, 1848, Samuel Page 2nd and someone named Joseph Page bought land in Orono from Nathaniel Treat described as "beginning at the Southeasterly corner of Lot numbered Sixty six."⁷

At the time, that was enough evidence to say that Joseph Page was the son of Samuel Page II and Julia Dudley.

Penobscot County Land Records

A month or so ago a descendant of Joseph told me about a new section of familysearch.org, namely https://www.familysearch.org/en/labs/. Familysearch has done an OCR scan of some older records that haven't been indexed yet and one set of records is the U.S. Land and Probate Records 1630-1975, including those for Penobscot County, Maine. You can do a full text search of them at the lab section of the site.

I've been going through them and, lo and behold, the land purchased by Samuel and a Joseph Page in 1848 was part of Joseph Page the railroad engineer's estate when probated in 1913. His will mentions "1/2 part of a lot consisting of 6 acres in common and undivided, being part of Lot 66 known at Nathaniel Treat lot in Orono."⁸ So he was the Joseph Page who was part purchaser in the 1848 deal.

Conclusion

That seems to sew things up as far as Joseph being the son of Samuel Page II. Hopefully the newly available records will clear up a few other questions about the Pages in Orono and Bangor–I would really like to identify Samuel II's father. For more on that see the article Samuel Page and Samuel Page II of Orono, Maine.

Footnotes

¹ "Maine Vital Records, 1670-1921", , FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:KCDH-73L : Tue Jul 09 09:27:14 UTC 2024), Entry for Joseph Page and Carrie B Emery, 01 Dec 1903.

² 1850 U.S. Census, Maine, Penobscot, Orono, Series M432, Roll 264, Page 257A, Census sheet 515.

³ 1840 U.S. Census, Orono, Series M704, Roll 149, Page 255.

⁴ 1850 U.S. Census, Orono, Series M432, Roll 264, Page 258.

⁵ 1860 Mortality Schedule, Orono, Maine, d January 1860, Eunice Page.

⁶ Joseph's daughter's birth date is calculated from her age at death. She died March 4, 1867, age 6 years, 6 months, 10 days. "Maine Vital Records, 1670-1921", , FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:2HK6-Q7H : Wed Jul 17 02:15:50 UTC 2024), Entry for Eunice M Page, 04 Mar 1867.

⁷ Treat to Page 2nd et. al. Penobscot County Land Records, Volume 198, Page 527, July 6, 1848. https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-C37Q-V9KR-K?view=fullText&keywords=Volume+198%2CPenobscot%2CCounty%2Cland&groupId=TH-909-85638-38203-8

⁸ Penobscot County Land Records, Case Number 6790, Volume 321, page 434, Last will and codicil of Joseph Page, https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QS7-89XT-QP8S?view=fullText&keywords=Joseph+Page%2CMaine%2CMAINE&groupId=TH-1971-40384-17772-33.