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 Prussian sailor, and his wife Jane Bell (1789-1873) from Nova Scotia.  According to some researchers, his birth name in Prussia 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 Jay, Plymouth, Brunswick, Bangor, Hampden, then 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.  I cannot find any record of this small family of three living in Maine for the census later that year.  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.  Daniel died of a cerebral hemorrhage at his home on 8 Parkdrive Terrace, Brookline in 1906, and was buried at Riverview Cemetery in Hampden (gravestone below).  On his death record, he states his mother was born in Scotland...

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

2. Marie Wurttemberg Holland (1812-??) 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 sawmill laborer.  He died in Hampden of heart disease.

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 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.

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

10.  William Moody Holland (1830-1865) born in Plymouth or Brunswick, grew up in Hampden.  He married Sarah Jackson of Rockland, and had one child, George Henry Holland (1860-1939) (who also became a sailor and later moved to Massachusetts and had six children).  William died at sea near St. George, Maine, of yellow fever during the Civil War, so young George was raised by his grandfather, George Jackson in Belfast, Maine (not sure whatever became of Sarah..).  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 gardner, but also fought very briefly in the Army during the end of the Civil War, as part of the 19th Maine Regiment.  He stayed in 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.

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.

The Murch Family of Maine

The Murch name appears after the Norman Conquest of England, 1066. It derives from the name March, which was believed to be a name given to those born in that month. It was also a name given to English people that lived on the borders of Wales and Scotland, as in "the Marches".

The furthest back I've been able to trace my family's Murch line is to fisherman Walter Murch (1681-1730) and Deborah Cornish of Devon, England, who emigrated to York Maine around 1714.  

There does appear to be an old record of land transactions (according to Virginia Spiller of the Old York Historical Society), whereby a Walter Murch received a grant of 20 acres clear on Mar. 8, 1715. He received a grant of 10 acres of swamp clear on Mar. 13, 1715 (where the recorder could find it clear of all former grants).  Therefore, Virginia Spiller thinks that Walter Murch evidently came to York ca. 1714, which was the third migration to York. This seems to be the same Walter Murch of Devon.

Walter's son William Murch, in 1747, was captured at his farm by local Indians and brought to Canada, where he was kept for a year.

William Murch married Tabitha Young, and had their own son, named Walter Murch (1740-1794) after his father. 

NOTE:  There are a number of trees on Ancestry which show this Walter (born 1740) to be son of Walter Murch (1696-1760) and Rebecca Garland, and that this Walter was also son to Walter Murch (1681-1730) and Deborah Cornish of Devon, and finally that this elder Walter is son to John Murch born 1650.  None of this is backed up with records, however, yet the trees persist.  We may never learn the parentage of Walter Murch of Devon, but we do know that Walter (born 1740) is the son of William and Tabitha of York Maine (not Walter and Rebecca).

In 1757 Walter and his brother John bought property in Gorham, and relocated there (joined later by other family) and that's where Walter married Jerusha Brown of Biddeford Maine, who was a descendant of the Edward III Plantagenet line.  When Walter was 20 years old, around 1760, he got into an accident and had to have his leg amputated.  He was said to have a wooden leg the rest of his life.  He was unable to serve in the Revolutionary War due to his disability, but he reputedly did serve as a Gorham town official.  Walter and Jerusha sold the Gorham property in 1804 and moved to Unity to live with their son Simeon.  They are reportedly buried somewhere in an apple orchard on Albion Road in Unity, behind a brick house built by Simeon.

Walter's son Ephraim (1778-1848) was my 4th great grandfather, and an early settler of Hampden Maine in 1794.  His wife was Rebecca Cobb.  They moved in the early 1800s to Castine.  They are buried at Castine's Town Cemetery.

Ephraim made the list of people who had letters waiting for them for several months in 1811:

Castine Eagle
Nov 7, 1811

My third great grandfather, James Murch (1817-1851), was a seaman (according to his son George's death record).  James' was born in Castine on October 14, 1817 to Ephraim and Rebecca Murch.  

Marriage Notice
James Murch and Mary Ann Jameson
Portland Daily Advertiser
Feb 9, 1841

In 1841, James married Mary Ann Jameson (daughter to cousins Celia Cook and John Jameson of the Cooke Mayflower line, and herself also a descendant of the Taunton Leonards and Edward III Plantagenet) and settled in Rockland (then part of Thomaston) with much of the Jameson clan of Scotch-Irish background.   A notice of their marriage, which was published in the Thomaston Recorder newspaper on January 28, 1841, reads as follows:

Marriages…In St. George by N. Liscomb, Esq., Mr. James Murch to Miss Mary A. Jameson, daughter of Captain John Jameson of S[t. George].  With the above we received a piece of the bride’s cake.  We are glad to record the names of those under this head, in whose minds the good old fashion of remembering the printer, is not entirely oblite [sic].  May their paths through life be strewed with flowers as sweet as their cake.

(Many thanks to Dana Murch for the assistance in digging for this and other records).

Death Notice
James Murch, age 36 (actually 34)
Portland Daily Advertiser
Dec 23, 1851

By Christmas of 1851, James had died in Montville at the young age of 34, leaving Mary Ann a widow with five kids (aged 1-10) at her home on Tea Street in Rockland, which she had acquired in fee as a widow via Knox County Deed 19/502 recorded April 24, 1868.  I have been unable to find a burial location for James or Mary Ann.  

James and Mary Ann's five children:

1.  Charles A. Murch (1841-1913) - (My 2nd Great Grandfather) - more on him below.

2.  George Washington Murch (1843-1920) - George fought in the 14th Maine Regiment Infantry in the Civil War, married twice, and had one daughter (Georgia Anna).

3. Andrew James Murch (1846-1893) - Andrew fought in the 14th Regiment alongside his brother George, and later moved to Weare, NH with his wife Irene.

4.  Amariah "George" Murch (1847-1882) -  After James died, Mary Ann gave him up for adoption, looks like first to her brother-in-law's brother-in-law, Abiezer Coombs of Isleboro (an island 20 miles northeast of Mary Ann's home in Rockland), per July 4, 1860 Census, and then later that month, for July 29, 1860 Census, he was living with his uncle Lewis Murch like his sister Ruby, and was going by "George A. Murch", son of Lewis.  He married Lottie Pearson, sister to his brother-in-law, George Pearson.  George Amariah Murch reportedly died at sea.

5. Ruby "Annette" Murch-Pearson (1849-1932) - Mary Ann gave her up for adoption to James' brother Lewis Cobb Murch (and his wife, Lois Coombs), to raise as his own.   Charles' obituary makes reference to his sister anyhow.  This tells me that it was not a family secret.

Charles A. Murch, born in Rockland in 1841 (then part of Thomaston).  His middle name is reputed to have been "Arthur", according to family lore, but no records appear to support that.  At the time of his father James's death, Charles went to live and work on the Vickery Farm in Unity, Maine.  He joined the 14th Maine Regiment of the Civil War effort in January of 1862, just as his brothers did (George Washington Murch and Andrew J. Murch).

Charles caught the measles immediately after joining the service, and was discharged three months later.  He battled the side effects of this disease for the rest of his life, losing some of his sight and hearing.

SIGNATURE FROM PENSION RECORD

DECEMBER 7, 1894

Charles married Rosa Bell Holland in 1871.  According to oral history of Joyce Fuller Norton, Charles and Rosa were both from wealthy backgrounds. After marriage, they moved to Salem, Massachusetts for several years, where Charles got a job with the railroad. They happened to be living there during the founding of the Christian Scientist movement in 1879, and became avid followers, and refused to ever see a doctor, as that was a violation of their new religion. They relocated to East Hampden in the late 19th Century, and in 1893 they had two children.  The eldest, Almeda F. Murch, died before her second birthday.  The youngest, my great grandmother, Lorena Holland Murch (born Louisa), who, at 16 years of age, married Arthur Fuller.

ROSA BELL HOLLAND-MURCH

CHARLES ARTHUR MURCH

LORENA HOLLAND MURCH-FULLER

(ca. 1910)

From oral history of Joyce Fuller Norton, Charles and Rosa Murch were the only family in the Hampden/Bangor area that could afford a horse and buggy.

In his later years, Charles worked as a laborer (1900 Census), and a laborer at odd jobs (1910 Census).  In his 1913 death record he was called a mechanic.  His extensive pension file paints a picture of a man who had a lung disease, weak eyes, and other aliments - and we know that he had consistently refused medical treatment for any of it, as per the orders of Christian Science.  According to my father he was also a "horse trader".

The oral history which paints the family as being of some means does conflict a bit with the pension records and lack of work available for Charles, which would indicate that they struggled to some extent.

Obituary of Charles A. Murch
Bangor Daily News
13 Dec 1913

In the late autumn of 1913, at the age of 72, Charles was found dead "sitting on his jigger" as per the above obituary.  Three days after his death, Rosa signed an affidavit as part of her application for a widow's pension, in which she stated that "the soldier was found dead on a lumber wagon in Stearns Lumber Company mill yard in East Hampden Maine."

Another one of Charles Murch's ancestors, Alice Carpenter Southworth, came from England on the ship Anne, in 1623, after her husband died in England. She and her husband were both part of the Puritan movement in Leyden, Holland. Their son, Constant, later moved to Plymouth and is a direct ancestor to Charles Murch. Alice, on the other hand, later in Plymouth, became a second wife to Governor William Bradford of the Mayflower.

Below is grave of Charles, in East Hampden's "Riverview" Cemetery.  Buried with Charles are his wife Rosa Bell, baby daughter Almeda, son-in-law Arthur Fuller (although not named on stone).  Nearby in the same cemetery are buried Rosa Bell's family, The Hollands, including her sister, parents, and uncle Daniel's family (and potentially more unmarked graves)

Below is pedigree chart for Charles.  He was 12.5% Scottish, through the famous Jameson and McLellan lines, and 87.5% colonial English, and descendant of three Mayflower passengers as well.  His ancestor James Cooke was a descendant of Mayflower passengers Francis Cooke, Stephen Hopkins and Elizabeth Fisher.

SOURCES:

Royal Descents of the Murch Family by Dana Paul Murch, 2013.

Oral History by Joyce Fuller Norton, Mark Fuller and Joel Fuller

Ancestry Family Trees

East Hampden Town Records

Maine Death Records

U.S. Pension Records

Genealogy Bank

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...