The Bell Family of Guysborough Nova Scotia

As mentioned in an earlier blog post, the surname Bell is a rather common name to New England, Canada, Scotland, Ireland and the British Isles.

My very distant ancestors (who are also ancestors of many tens of thousands of New Englanders) were John Bell & Elizabeth Wurttemberg of Nova Scotia (formerly of Scotch-Irish background).  At least two of their reportedly 11 children moved to Dover Maine and started large families in the early 1800s, and their story is traced here.

This blog post covers what is known, suspected, and questioned regarding their prior home in Nova Scotia, which was home to many Scotch-Irish immigrants.

John Bell was reputed to have been a loyalist during the American Revolution, and won a land grant from the King for his service, although his children were unsuccessful in locating and claiming that land.  We have been unable, as of this writing (July 2012), to locate any proof of records of John having been a Loyalist.  If and when we find such proof, we can then add his name to the UELAC Loyalist Directory.

The question of "where in Nova Scotia did they live" is a long mystery of all the Bell researchers.  Below is a collection of facts and ideas which may lead us to narrow down the likely places.

The Mormon Family History Library collection regarding Nova Scotia Deeds currently only offers Halifax County, which I don't believe our Bells come from.  There are many dozens of recorded deeds involving "John Bell", during the years 1749-1851.  According to Helen Thompson, a fellow researcher, this John married a Catherine, so it's not ours.

Helen also writes about a John Bell of around that time who was victimized by the 1792 Great Fire of Shelburne, Nova Scotia.  I'm doubtful this is our John as well, due to the commonality of the name John Bell, and the distance between Shelburne and the town of Manchester, where we have found many easily validated records.  Helen is to look in Shelburne vital records on microfilm order.

Helen did some nice research in Guysborough County records, most of it in Manchester town, per her message below:

The first record I have for a land transaction for John Bell, yeoman, in Canso is the 1812 land grant in which he is named with William Phipps. It states that they were both of Canso at the time of the grant. The land was then sold by The Sheriff in 1815 on behalf of "John Bell late of Canso" for the sum of Thirty Six Pounds .. subject to the "Equity of Redemption", sale being to the highest bidder Abraham Whitman.   Abraham Whitman seems to have taken out a writ against John Bell in 16 Oct 1813 for Twenty six pounds seven shillings (debt and costs), which seems to have led John Bell to abandon his land and property in Canso. A similar situation occurred with William Phipps as his land was also sold by The Sheriff at the same time.

Going through the other records I have found the following:

Christ Church Baptismal Records (film 1378473), Parish of Manchester, Gusyborough County (transcribed records)

-- Bell, Robert. Son of John and Elizabeth. Born Feb 12 1799

-- Bell, Catherine. Dau of John and Elizabeth. Born May 15 1805

-- Bell, Alexander. Son of John and Elizabeth. Born Oct 20 1706 --- I think this should read 1806

-- Russel, John. Son of Major and Mary. Bapt Jan 12 1799

-- Phipps, William. Son of William and Mary. Born Dec 15 1805

No burial records for any Bell, Holland/Hollien, Phipps or Russell.

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Registry of Marriages, Birth and Deaths for the town of Manchester 1783-1870 (film 1376195)

Alexander & Katherine Cumming  (is this Catherine Bell?, a daughter of John Bell)

-- George b[orn]. Dec 2 1784

-- Katherine d[ied]. Dec 12 1784

p.78 Marriages solemnized by [J Cutler]

1802 - December 26 William Phipps was married to Mary Russel

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From the book  "Guysborough Sketches and Essays" by A.C. Jost, p.320

Russell, Major. Married Mary Bell 8 May 1797. Family

-- John Bapt. 12 Feb 1799

-- Ann

-- Elizabeth

(It appears Major Russell died, and I have seen somewhere that he possibly drowned or died at sea. Mary (Bell) Russell then married William Phipps, 1802, which led to the birth of at least one child - William (see above)

The Bell Family of Dover-Foxcroft

The Bell surname is common to England, Ireland, and Scotland.  It is of uncertain origin, but it is believed to have stemmed from the profession of a bell ringer.

My Bell ancestors came from Scotland originally.  My fifth great grandfather, John Bell born 1746, according to legend, was married to an Elizabeth from the House of Württemberg in Germany, when it was part of the Holy Roman Empire, and before Württemberg became its own state.  I have yet to find any confirming paperwork for this connection, however.  I've also heard that John and Elizabeth were Scotch-Irish, living in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland, before they migrated to Nova Scotia.  John was reputed to have been a "Loyalist" during the American Revolution.  For his service to the King in the War, John received a land patent, but his children failed to locate and claim it.

Ten of his reported eleven children were:  Robert (a Methodist minister who was murdered), Jane, Henry, Alexander, Catherine, Mary, John,  David, Betsey, and Margaret.  Not totally sure of the birth order, but it's clear that Henry and Jane were born a year or so apart.

It's long been a brick wall for the Bell family and its researchers to determine exactly where the Bells came from.  Was John born in Scotland, or was he born in a Scotch-Irish settlement in Northern Ireland?  How did he meet the obviously German Elizabeth Wurttemberg?  When did they come to Nova Scotia?  Where in Nova Scotia?  Too many questions to answer...although some sources point to Canso (in Guysborough County).

I've done some digging into the Family History Library's collection of Northern Ireland, and it appears that there were many Bell families living in County Down (which is Northern Ireland's closest county in proximity to Scotland).  To that end, there were also about a dozen men named John Bell fathering children during the 1780s to early 1800s.  None of them appear to be with a wife named Elizabeth.  However, there was a John & Bella in County Down who had a Catherine (which is one of the names of the children of research) on 30 Jan 1786 in Downpatrick.  I can find no other children of this couple, however.  If I can just locate one or two more children of John & Bella with names that match the children's names above, we might have a close enough match.  There is a Jane Bell, born in Downpatrick, born to a John & Jane.

According to one family legend, John & Elizabeth lived in "Petelwerse, Nova Scotia".  Since no such town exists (or existed), it's possible that this was a misprint of what is now known as Bliss Island, New Brunswick (then unofficially called Pentelowe Island).

The above information comes from the family bible of Annie Bell-Saltonstall (1870-1943), who was a 4th generation descendant of John Bell.

Interestingly, much of what was found in Annie's bible matches the research provided to me by George Holland (descendant of Jane Bell and Daniel Holland like myself), and also Patti Manson C. (descendant of Henry Bell & Prudence Leach).

I've dug deeper into the possible whereabouts of the Bells' potential homestead in Nova Scotia on another blog post, found here.

I had long heard that my Bell ancestors were somehow related to Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone, born in 1847.  I did a study of this family lineage, and am very doubtful of this connection.  If any Bell family researchers out there reading this post would care to comment, I'd be interested to learn if they've heard, or proven, the same connection.  I had heard this from my great grandmother, Lorena Holland Murch-Fuller, who had told this to anyone who would listen, up until her death in 1990.  My pet theory is that Gram heard of one of the many men named Alexander Bell in our direct family, and made the connection herself (or repeated someone else's assertion of same).

What I do know is that among their 11 children, Jane and Henry Bell were siblings born in Nova Scotia to John & Elizabeth Bell, and moved to Jay Maine somewhere around 1810...and eventually settled in Dover Maine, among other towns.

Jane Bell-Holland (1789-1873)

Jane was my 4th great grandmother.  In 1808, she married sea captain Daniel Frederick Holland of Prussia (his name was believed to have been originally spelled Hollien).  According to some family trees, this marriage occurred in Canso, Nova Scotia.  If so, this would give us an indication of the general location of the Canadian settlement of the Scottish Bells.  According to other legends, Daniel's mother was also from the House of Württemberg.  This could be a carryover error, or it could establish a true link between these German and Scottish families.

In 1810, Daniel and Jane's first child, Daniel Jr., was born in Monmouth Maine.  In 1812, their second child, Marie Württemberg Holland, was born in Jay Maine, just 20 miles north of Monmouth.  Their next five children were born in Jay (including my 3rd great grandfather, Civil War Patriot John Christopher Holland).  Around 1825, the family moved 50 miles east of Jay, to Plymouth, Maine, and had their four remaining children, making 11 kids total.

The Holland children migrated to Hampden, for the most part.  Jane was living with her son, Daniel Jr., in Hampden for the 1850 Census (Jane was likely widowed at this point, and Daniel had yet to marry his wife, Mary Finson).  Jane's daughter Margaret Holland had moved to Dover, Maine in 1844, and married her first cousin, Alexander Bell (son to Jane's brother Henry).  Jane, at 66 years of age, was living with Margaret and Alexander's family in Dover for the 1860 Census, 

For the 1870 Census, Jane doesn't appear in any of her kids' census records.  Per the below death notice, she passed in Dover, Maine in 1873, likely back under the care of her daughter Margaret:

Death Notice
Jane Bell Holland
Lewiston Evening Journal
Mar 15, 1873

For any future researchers, please be aware that there was a Jane M. Holland of Kennebunk, who died in 1881, and a Jane M. Holland of Auburn, widow of Henry, who died in 1873.  Neither of these are the same as Jane Holland of Dover (formerly of Jay), the subject of this article.

I spoke with Dover Town Clerk in March of 2021, and they said that while they did keep death records from that time period of Jane's death, they do not have any record of her death or burial.  Therefore, I don't yet know where Jane is buried, but it's possible her grave is at the Pine Grove Cemetery in Dover-Foxcroft, the final resting place of many of the Bells of Dover, although the online cemetery listing doesn't show her, it could be she's unmarked.  I paid a visit to the Hampden Town Hall in 2011, and viewed burial records for all their cemeteries.  Jane's two eldest sons, Daniel and John, are buried at the town's Riverview Cemetery, but there is no mention of Jane there either.

Henry Bell

Farmer Henry Bell married Prudence Leach, and moved to Dover, where they had four children:  (i) Mary E. Bell, who married James Robinson, Manoah Harriman, and John Ames (six kids total), (ii) Henry P. Bell, who married Emeline Witham, had eight children and moved to Cleveland, Ohio, (iii) Alexander Bell, a farmer who married his first cousin Margaret Holland, and had three children, and (iv) Joel Paine Bell, who married twice, had three children, and eventually moved to Cheboygan, Michigan in his later years, where died at 77 of gangrene, just a couple months after his son George had passed.

One of the children of Alexander Bell and Margaret Holland, James Madison Bell, has some interest to me.  He married Sylvia Bean Burrill, who descended from the Scottish MacBean clan of New Hampshire, and the English colonial Burrill family, both of which I also descend from independently, in addition to the Bell and Holland families of Scotland and Germany written about in this and other posts.

James & Sylvia had eight children, including two sets of twins, born in succession.  The elder pair of twins (Ai & Ami) were sent to live with their grandparents, Alexander and Margaret.

Henry's descendants are numerous, and many generations later, Bells still call Dover home.

Here are some photos of a few of Henry's descendants kindly offered by Sallie Fleet, a descendant of Henry's son Joel:

ANNIE MAY BELL-SALTONSTALL

GRANDDAUGHTER OF JOEL PAINE BELL

LYDIA GLIDDEN-BELL (ON LEFT)

WIFE TO GEORGE BELL (SON TO JOEL PAINE BELL)

WITH DAUGHTERS ANNIE BELL-SALTONSTALL & AMY BELL-KNEALE

MARY E BELL-ROBINSON-HARRIMAN-AMES

DAUGHTER TO HENRY BELL

JOEL PAINE BELL

SON TO HENRY BELL

Below are some gravestone photos from Pine Grove Cemetery (aka Branns Mills Cemetery), the Dover-Foxcroft cemetery of the Bells and other related families, courtesy of Patti Manson C., a descendant of Henry Bell, via Find a Grave:

The Burrill Family of Fairfield Maine

The Burrill (also written as Burrell) surname is purportedly rooted (at least for our ancestry) in the Anglo-Saxon name Burwell, which is derived from the Old English byrig-wiellw, which means 'town well' or 'fort by a spring'.

Early origins of the name stem from those families that resided in the township of Burwell, as such township was located in each of Northampton, Cambridgeshire, and Lincolnshire.  Anyone with this last name would have ancestors originating in one of these three East England counties.

According to Ancestry trees (which can be dubious in nature), my 13th great grandfather was Edmund Burwell (1485-1549), from Suffolk (closest to Cambridgeshire), and is the furthest I've been able to trace the line.  Edmund's grandson Thomas Burwell, along with Thomas' son John, sailed to Connecticut about twenty years after the Mayflower arrived, but later migrated up to Plymouth Colony.  Many other Burwells from England had sailed directly to Virginia Colony at the same time.  Our branch of the Burwell family name had changed to Burrell/Burrill.  Several of these settlers married into lines that descended directly from Mayflower passengers, much like all colonial families. 

With reliable records, however, I've been able to trace as far back as John Burrill (1609-1711), who came at the age of 26 on the ship Blessing July of 1636.  He settled in Weymouth, MA in 1639. He was granted 26 acres. He had two lots of five acres granted 'in the Rainge' and 1 acres 'in King oke hill.' He also had lot 33 of 5 acres in the First Division and lot 41 of 15 acres in the second division granted 14 Dec 1663.

He was provided arms and ammunition for King Philip's War on 1 Dec 1675, one of 13 Weymouth men in Capt. Johnson's Company in Oct 1675.

His son, John Jr. (1658-1731), married Mercy Alden, granddaughter to Mayflower passenger John Alden.

GRAVE OF BELA BURRILL
EMERY HILL CEMETERY
FAIRFIELD, ME

Bela Burrill (1756-1816) was my 5th great grandfather, and a direct descendant of the Burrell family from Weymouth, MA.  At the age of nine, while the family was living in Abington, in Plymouth County, his mother (Anna Vinton) was in Maine and died giving birth to Bela's youngest brother Ziba.  According to online trees, Bela's father John Burrill died in Abington on the same day (12 Mar 1765).  I have yet to find any backup records for this date coincidence (so it could be an error), but if true it could prove to have been a sad tale.  

Bela fought in the Revolutionary War for five months, in Capt. James Lamont‘s Company. Private 22 July 1775 to 31 Dec 1775.  Afterwards, he somehow found his way up to Somerset County, Maine, where he met Hannah Colemore, a Sagadahoc, Maine native.   Bela fought in Captain James Lamont's Company from 22 Jul 1775 to 31 Dec 1774.  Bela's brother John fought in the Revolutionary War, in Capt. Gould's company, Col. John Greaton's regiments, among others, and fought five and a half long years. His father John was a Sergeant and his grandfather John was a Captain.

Bela and Hannah settled in Fairfield, and had approximately nine children.  Their son Hull Burrill was a veteran of the War of 1812 and a prominent attorney from nearby Canaan, and father of 10.  He appeared in many Somerset County court records going after people for failure to pay him money.  Their son Jonas lived in nearby Clinton, and their son Bela Jr. lived in nearby Albion (now China).  Another son Benjamin Burrill (1782-1857), 4th great grandfahter, grew up in Fairfield and took on farming, just like the Colemores, Emerys, Sibleys, and Osborns who were his neighbors.  I have yet to establish proof that Benjamin is the son of Bela (an established John Alden descendant), but other applications to the Mayflower Society have succeeded for Benjamin's descendants in the past. 

In 1803, Benjamin married Margaret Sibley, daughter of English, French Huguenot and Nova Scotian immigrants, and they had five children.  In July 1825, he sued his brother Hull for a fraudulent conveyance of 82 acres of land in Canaan Hull had sold to him when he didn't actually own the property.  Hull never showed up in court, and Benjamin was awarded his money back. [Source:  Somerset County Court Records].

Benjamin's daughter, Lydia Burrill (1806-1854) married local farmer Jacob Osborn, son to sea captain Isaac Osborn (Rev War veteran and transplant from East Hampton, Long Island) and Sarah Wyman (Isaac's brother Ephraim married Sarah's sister Lydia - who was a cousin to Polly Wyman, Hull Burrill's wife!). 

Jacob died very young, and only a few years after marriage.  A couple of years later Lydia married Jacob's own younger brother Timothy Osborn (1805-1898), pictured below:

Their daughter Lydia Osborn married Charles Samuel Fuller (who was Timothy's cousin!).  Lydia and Charles were my 2nd great grandparents.

***

As is often the case with early New England families, another set of Burrills figure in to the family:

My third great grandfather, John Holland, whose nephew, James Madison Bell, married Sylvia Belle Burrill, who was also a descendant of immigrant John Burwell (Sylvia was also a descendant of the same Bean family from Scotland as the ancestors of Samuel Bean Fuller, father to Charles Fuller mentioned above!

Below is a pedigree chart of Lydia Burrill-Osborn-Osborn.  She was 25% French, 75% English.

The Hollands of Central Maine

My 4th great grandparents were Daniel Friedrich Holland (born about 1790), a Bavarian sailor, and his wife Jane Bell (1789-1873) from Nova Scotia.  According to some researchers, his birth name in Bavaria was Hollien, and turned to Holland when he emigrated to Nova Scotia.  Daniel married Jane Bell while living in Canso, Nova Scotia, in 1808.

Daniel and Jane migrated to Monmouth Maine around 1809, where they started their family.  They later moved to other Maine towns: Jay, Plymouth, Brunswick, Bangor, Hampden, then finally Dover.

Below is a brief summary of collected information about each of their children:

1.  Daniel Frederick Holland Jr. (1810-1906) was born in Wales, Maine, January of 1810.  Daniel married Mary A. Finson and had six daughters.  He lived most of his life in Hampden Maine, and worked as a farmer and a cooper.  It's also possible that he worked as a seaman like his father (given the mention of two seaman in the family during the 1840 census of Jay).  As for his family: of his 5 surviving children, 4 of them lived with him for each census until his death at the turn of the century.  None of them ever got married.  Just before their parents' deaths they all moved together to Brookline, Massachusetts, on Davis Avenue.  He was a Naval Landsman in the Civil War, serving on the following ships:  USS Potomac, USS Varuna, USS Oneida, USS Ohio, USS Sabine, and USS North Carolina.  On his wife's pension application, it showed that Daniel was at the lowest rank of Landsman (even after all those ships).  When he lived in Brookline, he worked for George Stetson & Co.  Daniel died in 1906 of a cerebral hemorrhage at his home on "8 Parkdrive Terrace, Brookline, MA", but I don't see an address that matches online, and was buried at Riverview Cemetery in Hampden (gravestone below).  On his death record, he states his mother was born in Scotland...but she was actually born in Nova Scotia.  In his obituary, it was claimed that his father was a Württemberg German, and that his mother was from the Bell & Stuart clans of Scotland.  All of this was true, but the obituary also said that he was part Russian.  Württemberg Germans were not of Russian extraction, but some of them resided in Russia at times.

DANIEL FREDERICK HOLLAND JR.
MARY A. FINSON-HOLLAND
CA. 1890

2. Marie Wurttemberg Holland (1812-before 1852) was born in Jay, and her middle name provides evidence of the connection to the Duchy of Wurttemberg, Germany, home of Daniel's mother, and possibly Jane's mother too. I cannot find any records at all on her. The above was oral history provided by a Holland researcher.

3.  John Christopher Holland (1814-1899) was born in Jay and raised in Hampden, and was my 3rd great grandfather.  He was listed as head of household for the 1840 census of Bangor, wherein two members of the family were 'employed in the Navigation of the Ocean', which would be his father, and likely also his brother Daniel.  John married Dorcas Harvey of Atkinson, and had two daughters, Isabel (who died as a baby), and my 2nd great grandmother, Rosa Bell Holland, who married Charles Murch of Rockland and Unity, Maine.  John started out working on the family farm in Hampden, but later worked as a shoemaker, a sawmill laborer and an insurance salesman in Bangor.  He died in Hampden of heart disease.  His death record states that he fought in the Civil War, although he was 50 at the time, and that his next of kin was Frank Holland of Germany.  This must have been an uncle or cousin, and it was interesting they knew of family living in Germany, but in 1899, John could have named his wife Dorcas, or his daughter Rosa Bell, both of whom were living in Hampden, same town, as his next of kin.  I wonder if there was any bad blood there.  At that point in time, you certainly could name a female as next of kin.  He also had brothers who were still alive at the time (Daniel & George).

4.  Sarah Jane Holland (1816-1883) was born in Jay and raised in Hampden, and married Colonel Oliver Kennard Nason, Civil War patriot from Limington Maine.  They moved to Levant, and later settled in Kenduskeag.  They had six children.

5.  Hannah Holland (1819-??) was born in Jay, raised in Hampden, and married John Griffin in Portland.  They had four children there.  Hannah moved back to Hampden for the 1850 census, and was boarding her brother Moody.  I cannot figure out what happened to her or her four children after that.

6.  Isabel Holland (1819-??) born in Jay, and possible twin sister to Hannah.  No records, so she may have died young.

7.  Margaret Holland (1820-1907) born in Jay, raised in Hampden.  She married her first cousin, Alexander Bell of Dover.  Alexander's father was Henry Bell (brother to Jane).  They had three children, descendants of which are still living in the Dover area today.

8.  Mary Ann Gardner Holland (1825-1895) born in Plymouth.  She was a Civil War nurse who wrote a book called "Our Army Nurses", published in 1895.  In the book she mentions caring for her nephew, William K. Nason, son of Sarah Jane Holland and Oliver K. Nason.  Mary Ann died single in Somerville, Mass of scirrhus cancer at her home on 17 Grove Street, and she's buried at Holy Cross Cemetery.  On her death record it states that her mother's birthplace was Jay, Maine, which was an error.  Mary Ann cared for her mother Jane until Jane's death.  Per Wikipedia, and according to Holland's account, she worked in hospitals for about fourteen months. She would have enlisted earlier, she writes, if she didn't have an aging mother depending upon her.  Ultimately, Holland cared for her mother during the day then worked with the Sanitary Commission on weekday evenings.  I've dedicated a separate blog page to her here.

9.  Nelson Holland (1825-1826) born in Plymouth, possible twin to Mary Ann.  Died young.

10.  William Moody Holland (1830-1865), also known as Moody William Holland, born in Plymouth or Brunswick, grew up in Hampden.  He and his wife Delia had two children, one named George Henry Holland (1860-1939) (who also became a sailor and later moved to Massachusetts, became a reverend, and had six children).  They lived at St. George, Maine.  Moody died of yellow fever at the Island of Inagua in the Bahamas during the Civil War, so young George was raised by his grandfather, George Jackson in Belfast, Maine (not sure whatever became of Delia..).  Moody's death record lists his mother as "Mary Jane"...not just Jane.

11.  George Nelson Holland (1833-1923) born in Brunswick, remained in Hampden all his life. He and his wife Lydia had three daughters:  Mabel, Clara and Nellie.  He worked as a gardener, but enlisted in March of 1865 during the end of the Civil War, as part of the 19th Maine Regiment.  He only served two months and was discharged due to G.O. 77 (the order that allowed for discharge of excess soldiers once the Confederate Army was surrendering in the last year).  After the War, his horticultural talents were recognized regularly, including being in charge of the agricultural exhibits at the Bangor Fair.  After his wife Lydia died, he moved into Togus Hospital for almost a full year from 1919 to 1920, due to hardening of the arteries at age 86, just a few years before his death in Zephyrhills, Florida.

I cannot find the Holland family in the 1810 censuses of either Monmouth or Jay, so it's likely they lived somewhere else just after Daniel Jr. was born.  I did find Daniel's family in Jay for the 1820 Census (under Daniel Holand) and 1830 Census (under "Daniel Hollin").  The 1840 Census shows the whole family living in Bangor, with John being the head of household, but with two elders living with him who were his parents' ages, and two people were listed as being 'employed in the Navigation of the Ocean'.  That would be Daniel Sr., and also Daniel Jr., I believe.  The two of them may have been out to sea at the time of the census, leaving John the head of household, as the eldest son.  I believe Daniel Sr. died sometime afterward in the Bangor area, but the Bangor archives have nothing on his death from 1800-1892.

During the 1850 Census, Jane was living with Daniel Jr. on the farm in Hampden, next door to her son John and his family, and also next door to her daughter Hannah Holland-Griffin's family, who were taking Jane's three youngest children as lodgers (then ages 17-25).  Hannah's children were all born in Portland, but for some reason she moved back to Hampden with the kids (and without her husband John).  

By the 1860 Census, she was head of household at a home in Dover, Maine, along with her daughter, Margaret Holland-Bell and family.

I took a trip to Riverview Cemetery, aka East Hampden Cemetery, in Hampden Maine, and snapped some photos of the gravestones of Daniel Jr., John, and their families:

Below is a pedigree chart for Rosa Bell Holland.  She was 50% colonial English, 25% German, and 25% Scottish.

Alexander Graham Bell

Alexander Graham Bell
(1847-1922)
"I'm not your ancestor!!"

My paternal great grandmother, Lorena Murch Fuller ("Gram"), was an avid genealogist. She had a family bible with tons of documents and family tree information. I feel that she would have loved the Internet, and its rapidly evolving methods of cataloging family history.

Gram had always said that there was a family relation from her side, to that of Alexander Graham Bell ("AGB"). Below is a very geeky explanation of my research in an attempt to confirm or refute that claim:

First, here is what I can confirm:

-Gram's mother was Rosa Bell Holland.

-Rosa's paternal grandmother was named Jane Bell, born in 1794 in Dover, Maine, according to Census records, and also according to Rosa's birth certificate (although the Town of Dover can't verify Jane having been born there).

-According to another person's family tree data on Ancestry (no documents, mind you), Jane's father was John Bell, born 1766 in Scotland.

-John Bell had three children, supposedly. Jane, John, and Henry. Henry was born in Nova Scotia (New Scotland)...just two years after Jane was born in Dover. This leads me to believe that Jane may have actually been born in Nova Scotia. (On an interesting side note, Jane’s daughter Margaret married Alexander Bell, Henry’s son. An instance of 1st cousins marrying).

Anyhow, now for what we historically know from AGB's family tree, which is as well documented as any other famous person's, and rests almost entirely in Scotland:

-AGB only had two daughters, who married into the very wealthy Grosvenor and Fairchild names, and neither name appears in our tree to date.

-AGB’s father, Alexander Melville Bell (“AMB”) had two other sons, who died in their 20’s of tuberculosis, Edward and Melville. Edward had no children. Melville had a son, Edward, who died at age 2.

-AMB had a brother, David Charles Bell, born in the Orkney Islands, who had 12 children, and settled in Washington DC. All of David's kids were born between 1840 and 1860...so if there's a blood relation to Jane Bell it has to go back further than this generation.

-Jane Bell would have been roughly the same age as AMB’s father, Alexander Bell (“AB”). AB's wife was not Jane Bell (remember, Bell was Jane's maiden name). Jane could have been a potential sibling of AB. I haven’t yet discovered proof. I’ve only found AB’s siblings to be named Helen and James. I’ve also discovered a Jane Bell that was AB’s daughter that died at 2 years of age. She may have been named after our Jane Bell. But if Jane is indeed AB's sister, that would mean that AB's father would have to be John Bell from Scotland.

-There is evidence that AB's father was actually named David Bell, from Scotland, where he was born and died.

Now, we're left with only two possibilities:

-David Bell is Jane's AND AB's father, and he somehow came to Nova Scotia or Maine to have her, while also having AB one year prior, IN SCOTLAND.

-John Bell is indeed Jane's father, and is probably a brother or first cousin to David Bell.

I see no evidence that confirms the above two scenarios. Until I come across other information, I have to believe that Gram's assertion that she's related to AGB to be a legend or 'wishful thinking', especially since she was actually born 40 years after him, and it's hard to believe that the sheer volume of Scottish records required from the above assertions would have made it to her family bible.

Sorry Gram...

Arthur & Lorena Fuller

ARTHUR WILLIAM FULLER

Arthur William Fuller (1867-1940) of Bangor was a railroad engineer.  Arthur belonged to the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and the Odd Fellows out of Bangor.  A son of the marriage of second cousins, Arthur's lineage was riddled with many such instances of cousins marrying, as well as being the descendant of multiple established royal English, French, German, Ukranian/Swedish, and Scottish lines, including links to the Mayflower.  Arthur never entered high school, and entered the workforce in Fairfield, Maine, in 1885.

CHARLES SAMUEL FULLER

(1835-1878)

Arthur's father, Charles Samuel Fuller, died in Iowa when Arthur was only 11. It's unlikely that he had many memories of his father, as Arthur never went to Iowa.

He began working at the railroad from a very young age.  But it appears that for a time he worked as an accident insurance agent (based on the business card found amongst the family heirlooms):

It's not clear to me when he lived in Portsmouth or worked in Boston, but based on available records, I am assuming this was in the 1890s.

In 1897, Arthur's stepfather William Henry Moody (recently married to Lydia Osborn-Fuller, Arthur's mother) conveyed to Arthur the "Tuttle Farm" property in Athens.  Arthur deeded it back to Moody in 1901.  I'm not certain why.  A bit of research tells me that there were dozens of Tuttles living in Athens at the turn of the century, so which farm this refers to is a mystery, but below is the 1901 deed:

In 1908, Arthur wrote and published a handbook entitled Fuller's Manual of Railroad Rules and Train Rights.  He sold this for $1.00 (about $24.00 in 2010 currency).

The book was advertised in The Bookseller, Newsdealer, and Stationer on March 1, 1908:

In 1909, at age 42, he married Lorena Holland Murch ("Gram"), born "Louisa", according to her birth record.  Per my cousin, Joel Fuller, Lorena went by horse and wagon out of Greenville to work at the Mt. Kenio Hotel and that is how she met Arthur Fuller.

KENIO HOTEL
MOOSEHEAD LAKE, MAINE
CIRCA 1905

LORENA HOLLAND MURCH-FULLER

(1893-1990)

When they married, Gram was a 16 year old high school student and music teacher, 26 years younger than Arthur. Gram also had colonial, Salem roots, Mayflower, as well as noble English, Scottish, and German ancestry. She even spoke of a link from her family to Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone, but that is something I've yet to verify.

ROSA BELL HOLLAND-MURCH

CHARLES ARTHUR MURCH

LORENA HOLLAND MURCH-FULLER

(ca. 1910)

Such a marriage had to be consented to, and it was partially an arranged affair, as Gram's parents, Charles and Rosa Bell, who were Christian Scientists, felt that it would be good to marry her into an established family like the Fullers, and that Arthur had good stock, and a great career ahead of him. Unfortunately, things didn't pan out so well with that plan, as he ultimately died penniless, with no life insurance, and no pension, leaving Gram nothing.  Gram was working as a hotel maid at the time of Arthur's death, and living on 102 Forest Avenue in Portland, at which time their daughter Lorena was also living with them with her three children, having been abandoned by her husband, Tom Leonard.

According to my cousin Joel Fuller, Lorena and Arthur, at some point while they were living in Portland, (1917-1940) they ran a "way station" on US RTE 1 Scarborough, Maine, which was at the junction of Cascade Road, across from the Danish Village.  He recalls seeing what was left of the structure with an old crank up fuel pump. There is nothing left now but bamboo. He had tried to find a picture or writing of this through the Historical Soc to no avail. This term was a holdover from the days of stagecoach travel before they became gas stations.

While manning the way station, Lorena packed a .22 derringer!  The gun is still held in the family today. 

LORENA MURCH-FULLER
& BABY CHARLES
(1913)

While in Bangor, they had three children:

1.  Charles Arthur Fuller (1912-1916) was born in Woodland, Maine (Washington County) in 1912.  I'm not certain why they were all the way back east at this time.  Little Charlie died in Lorena's arms of endocarditis just shy of age 4.

CHARLES ARTHUR FULLER
(1912-1916)

Arthur's sister Ida, who wrote many poems in her day, wrote a poem in 1917 about little Charles' death:

2.  Harold Murch Fuller (1914-1990) was born in Bangor.  He was a bus driver in Portland, and married four times, having 6 kids and 17 grandkids total.

3.  Lorena Bell Fuller (my Nana) (1917-1994) was also born in Bangor.  She worked many years at Hannaford's in Portland, and was briefly married to Thomas Edward Leonard of Portland.

HAROLD MURCH FULLER

LORENA BELL FULLER

LORENA HOLLAND MURCH-FULLER

(ca. 1920)

Soon after the birth of Lorena, the family moved from Bangor to Portland, where Arthur had secured a new job as an engineer at the Bank of Commerce Building (below).

568 Washington Avenue

They first lived at 568 Washington Avenue, from around 1917, and then by the 1930 Census, they were living at 97 Forest Avenue:

In the 1940 Census, they lived across the street at 102 Forest Avenue:

Arthur Fuller died in 1940, just after Nana had filed divorce proceedings against her husband Tom Leonard. Her brother Harold was then married to his second wife (of 4) in Portland. Gram was devastated, having to find a way to get by without her husband, and pay for all the funeral expenses. My father mentions that he remembers being 4 years old, and one of his earliest memories was of his grandfather's body being carted off in a pine box. Gram eventually moved in with her daughter in Gray.

For the 1950 Census, with Gram, Nana, and her three kids, at 13 W. Presumpscot Street in Portland, Gram was working as a silk presser at Watkins Dry Cleaners, while Nana was not working, just staying at home raising the kids.  

The above picture is of the original Watkins Company.  They moved in the 1920's to the corner of Forest Avenue and Liberty, where the Walgreen's now sits.

I don't believe Nana got much (if any) child support payments from Tom, so the money coming in from Gram was likely all that there was, in addition to anything Arthur had left her.  

Gram was a wonderful piano player, and also an avid collector of genealogical information. She had a bible of family records about 6 inches thick. The bible was destroyed in a big fire at Honey's house...long before I could get my hands on it to benefit from the research inside. Gram also had held onto lots of ancient china and a tea set that had been in the Murch family for generations.

Lorena "Gram" Fuller died in a nursing facility in Yarmouth in 1990, at age 96, after a five day battle with pneumonia.  Her daughter Lorena Leonard, my Nana, died four years later at a nursing home in Portland at age 76, also of pneumonia.  Both of them were also battling dementia at the time of their deaths.

Below is the grave of Gram, in the Gray Cemetery, buried next to her daugher Lorena and granddaughter Rena.

Below is the gravesite of Arthur Fuller, right next to his young son Charles:

Below are the pedigree charts of Arthur & Lorena.

Gram was 12.5% German (through her Great Grandfather, Daniel Hollien), 12.5% Scottish (accumulated royal blood through ancestors John Bell and Robert Jameson), and the remainder 75% was English colonial.  Her ancestor Elijah Cooke was a descendant of Mayflower passengers Francis Cooke, Stephen Hopkins and Elizabeth Fisher.  Also, her ancestor Robert Jameson descended from the renowned Jameson Clan of Scotland, who fought in the Revolution and were among the first settlers of the early Maine towns of Cape Elizabeth, Rockland and Friendship.

Arthur was about 3% Scottish (royal blood through his ancestor Rev. War ancestor David Bean), less than 6% French (through his great grandmother, Margaret Sibley) and the remainder 91% was English colonial. His ancestor Bela Burrill was a descendant of Mayflower passengers John Alden, Rebecca Mullins, William Mullins & Alice Atwood. His ancestor Samuel Fuller was a descendant of Mayflower passenger Edward Fuller.