Stroll Haunted Yarmouth 2021
SHOW PROGRAM
JAMES & SARAH HILL
JAMES HILL (1766-1850)
SARAH HILL (1765-1845)
James and Sarah Hill’s family home is still standing, located just across the railroad tracks from Yarmouth History Center. The Hill family’s unique “Billboard style” headstone, found immediately to the left at the front entrance of the Baptist (Hillside) Cemetery, was restored and repaired in 2020 by a descendent of the Hill family. You can learn more information on the Hill Family and their unique billboard monument on the Yarmouth History Center’s YouTube channel where they share their April 2021 lecture: Hill Family Billboard Monument with Ron Romano (the area’s expert gravestone historian) and Craig Stinson (descendant of James and Sarah Hill).
Hill Family gravestone
REV. DAVID SHEPLEY (1804-1881)
Rev. David Shepley was born on June 1st, 1804, in Solon, Maine to parents Daniel Shepley & Eunice Blood. He married Myra Nott on May 30th, 1830, in Old Saybrook, Connecticut. Together they had 5 daughters and at least 1 son. The US Census shows Pastor Shepley as living in Winslow, Maine in 1860 and in Yarmouth, Maine in 1870. He died on December 1st, 1881, in Providence, Rhode Island, at the age of 77, and was buried in Swan Point Cemetery there.
Other early Yarmouth citizens excommunicated by the Reverend Shepley included: Enos Storer, Capt. Allen Drinkwater, David Cleaves, Mrs. Eliza Corliss, Mrs. Mary N. Blaisdell, Lydia Corliss Cleaves, and Caroline Augusta Warren.
JOHN BROOKS
JOHN BROOKS (1831-1898)
John Edward Brooks was an expert potter and natural chemist who worked with his father at their family pottery business, located at 40 East Elm Street (formerly known as Gooch’s Lane). Brooks built a large kiln but for some reason did not operate it. The business passed out of the family after financial difficulties.
About the rest of the Books Family:
John’s parents were Joel Smith Brooks and Susan Soule Brooks. John’s older sisters were Sally Smith (1823-1848), Eliza Corliss (1824-1875), Abigail Soule, Saba Smith and Mary Foster. Mary Foster married David Pratt, of North Road, who was a conductor on the Grand Trunk Railroad. John’s brother, George (1833-1891), learned blacksmithing from Mr. Henry Caswell, and afterwards went to California.
Link to additional information about early New England pottery, featuring Brooks Pottery: https://whatelyhistorical.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/earlynewenglandpotters.pdf
Brooks Family monument
THE BUCKNAM FAMILY
Bucknam Family graves
SAMUEL BUCKNAM (1775-1855)
Samuel Bucknam was born on September 6th, 1775 on Cousins Island in Yarmouth, Maine. At Samuel’s birth his father William Richardson Bucknam was 27 and his mother Sarah Loring Bucknam was 28. Samuel married his first wife, Mary Blanchard, on November 10th, 1798 in North Yarmouth, Maine. Following Mary’s death in 1805, he married his second wife, Phebe, on February 27th, 1806. Samuel died on November 2nd, 1855 in Yarmouth, Maine, at the age of 80. Samuel and Phebe made their home on what is known today as Drinkwater Point in a house and on land purchased by Samuel’s father William from Samuel Drinkwater in 1782. The home still stands today.
PHEBE BUCKNAM (1776-1861)
Phebe Chandler was the daughter of ENOS CHANDLER and RHODA GRAY. She was born Oct 6th, 1776 in North Yarmouth, Maine, and married Samuel Bucknam on February 27th, 1806 in Cumberland, Maine. Together, they had six children: William (1806–1851), Joseph (1809–1892), Samuel (1811–1888), Charles (1813–1884), Mary (1816–1892) and James Monroe (1818–1905).
MARY BUCKNAM (1776-1805)
Mary Blanchard Bucknam was born on July 30th, 1776, in Cumberland Maine. At her birth, her father, Joseph Blanchard, was 35 and her mother, Mary Andrews, was 23. She married Samuel Bucknam on November 10th, 1798, in North Yarmouth, Maine. They were the parents of at least 3 sons and 1 daughter: Reuben (1799–1812), Jeremiah (1802–1865), Samuel (1803–1805) and Anna (1805-1892). She died on September 10th, 1805, in North Yarmouth, Maine, at the age of 29.
REUBEN BUCKNAM (1799-1812)
Reuben was the oldest child of Samuel and Mary Bucknam. He was born November 4th, 1799 and died in 1812.
THE LAMPLIGHTERS
ABIGAIL & CHARLOTTE CHASE
Joseph A. Chase (1845 – 1925) was a lamplighter here in Yarmouth. He is buried in the Hillside Cemetery. The characters of his mother Abigail and daughter Charlotte are fictional, but all of the lamp lighting information they convey is true! The streets of Yarmouth were first lit by street lamps on November 1st, 1877, the result of a town-meeting held March 26 at which it was voted “to have streetlamp in the town”. Chase performed these lighting duties from 1877 until 1892
A Victorian lamplighter
CHARLES HAYES
CHARLES HAYES (1842-1895)
Charles Hayes was born May 28th, 1842. He served in the US Navy for four years during the Civil War on the Union Navy vessel the Isaac N. Seymour. His service is commemorated underneath his name on the Hayes family monument. Charles married Martha J. Rideout (1844-1927). Martha was from Bowdoin, Maine. Together they had two children: Carrie R. Hayes Rowe (1874-1940) and George Sylvanius Hayes (1875-1897). The rest of Charles’ family is buried in Franklin Cemetery in Franklin, NH. Charles died on March 14th, 1895 at the age of 53.
Additional information about the Isaac N. Seymour: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Isaac_N._Seymour
Hayes family monument
LUCY HUMPHREY EDEVEAN
LUCY HUMPHREY EDEVEAN (1834-1889)
Lucy was born June 7th, 1834 to father Daniel Rice Humphrey (1809-1857) and mother Hannah Gage Ring (1806-1880). Lucy’s father, a shipmaster, was killed by mutineers aboard the brig Alice Cooper. She was married at age 27 to William Edevean on November 12th, 1861. They settled in Yarmouth, purchasing her mother’s house on Sligo Road. After William was lost at sea in 1876 she became a widow with young children, facing the challenge of supporting her family without a husband.
WILLIAM EDEVEAN (1830-1876)
William Edevean was born April 20th, 1830. He married Lucy Gage Humphrey on November 12th, 1861. He lived in Yarmouth and was a ship-master. He died (assumed) in November of 1876 while at sea commanding the bark Everett Gray of Yarmouth, at the age of 31. His last name, Edevean (alt. spelling: Edevane) is a rare Welsh surname believed to be of Cornish origin. It is made up of two elements. The first, ’Ed’, derives from the ancient (Old English?) ‘ead’, meaning ‘prosperity’ and/or ‘happiness’ (and also gave rise to names like Edmund (‘prosperity protector’), Edward, (meaning ‘prosperity guardian’) and Edwin (‘prosperity friend’). The second element, ‘vean’ or ‘vane’ means ‘little’ or ‘the younger’. Edevane and variants, therefore, would seem to have the sense ‘the younger happy one’ or ‘the younger prosperous one’.
MRS. EDEVEAN
Mrs. Edevean is a fictionalized imagining of William Edevean’s mother, about whom we have no surviving information.
MADAME LAVEAU (1801-1881)
This character was inspired by Marie Catherine Laveau, born September 10th, 1801. She was of Louisiana Creole heritage and was a practitioner of Voodoo as well as a herbalist and midwife who was renowned in New Orleans. Her daughter, Marie Laveau II, (1827–1862), also practiced Native American and African spiritualism as well as Louisiana Voodoo. An alternate spelling of her name, Laveaux, is considered by historians to be from the original French spelling. She died June 15th, 1881.
For more information on Madame Laveau: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Laveau
Humphrey family monument
George Hammond
Ellen Hammond
GEORGE & ELLEN HAMMOND
GEORGE HAMMOND (1833-1908)
George Warren Hammond was born in Grafton, Massachusetts on April 4th, 1833. He moved to Maine in 1853 upon accepting a position at his uncle’s S.D. Warren’s paper mill. Together, he and his uncle started Yarmouth’s Forest Paper Company, which George would go on to manage. According to History and Genealogies of the Hammond Families, George Hammond was “always sanguine of success. He lost no time if an enterprise promised well, and with a strong confidence in his theories, coupled with a will to advance and prove them correct, he took chances where others might have hesitated and lost.” He married Ellen S.S. Clark, a sister-in-law of S.D. Warren, in 1876. George died on January 6th, 1908 and is buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, MA.
ELLEN HAMMOND (1833-1905)
Ellen Sarah Sophia Clarke Hammond was born July 22nd, 1833 in Blandford, Massachusetts. Her parents were Dorus Clarke (1797-1884) and Hannah Bliss Clarke (1801-1878). She was the fourth of five children. In 1876, she married George Hammond. Ellen Hammond is credited with the distinguished visual features of the house, incorporating the treasures she and George collected during their travels into the interiors of the rooms. An 1891 article reviewing the home noted the ingenious way the treasures were “wrought into the fabric of the house”. She died November 9th, 1905, and is buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, MA.
Additional info on the Hammonds: https://www.yarmouthmehistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Booklet-2017-Yarmouth-His- torical-Fall-Newsletter.pdf
Additional info on Camp Hammond: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Hammond_(Yarmouth,_Maine)
A little more about the history of Yarmouth’s libraries: The original "public library” in what was then called North Yarmouth was instituted in 1717 when Deacon John White left in his will thirty pounds “to be laid out in the purchase of books which were to be placed in the care of the pastor of the First Church and by him lent to the people". The remains of this library came into the collection of North Yarmouth Academy and was augmented by Parson Gilman’s private library and other books contributed by interested individuals. In 1805, the Social Library was organized and maintained for nearly fifty years. Social Libraries were cooperative book lending groups that stored books in their personal libraries and kept records on who books were lent to and when. By the early 1880s, two ladies’ lending libraries, consisting largely of fiction, were established in town: one at Yarmouth and one at Yarmouthville.
Many thanks to the Yarmouth History Center for providing this research.
Please be sure to visit their Stroll Haunted Yarmouth exhibit to see original photographs, letters and other artifacts related to the people and stories of Stroll Haunted Yarmouth 2021.
This special exhibit is up now through the end of the year.