April 21, 2023
Introduction: In this article, Melissa Davenport Berry continues her series on Mayflower descendants, focusing on the Garcelon family of Maine. Melissa is a genealogist who has a blog, AnceStory Archives, and a Facebook group, New England Family Genealogy and History.
Today I continue my series on “Mayflower Descendants: Who’s Who,” focusing on the Garcelon family of Maine, who played instrumental roles in the establishment of such towns as Lewiston, Maine.
A living descendant, David Garcelon, has kindly offered to share family photographs, and history which spans back many years. He has donated many of the family records to various historical societies and Bates College.
David is connected to Mayflower passengers William Bradford, John Alden, and Priscilla Mullins.
Below is the lineage:
- William Bradford
- Susanna Bradford and Ezekiel Richardson
- Josiah Richardson and Remembrance Underwood
- Josiah Richardson and Mary Mercy Parish
- Hannah Richardson and John Barron
- Lydia Barron and Lawrence Jackson Harris
- Maria Harris and William Garcelon
- William Green Garcelon and Mary Davis
- Alonzo Garcelon and Ann Augusta Waldron
- Charles Augustus Garcelon and Esther Coffin – Tristram Coffin and Dionis Stevens
- Albert Bertram Garcelon and Helen Abbot Stowell, daughter of Frederick Billings Stowell and Ellen Jane Collar; Charles Collar and Mary Ann Coe; Sarah Holmes Weaver and Isaac Coe; Sarah Ellis and William Coe; Rebecca Taylor and John Coe; John Coe and Sarah Pabodie; William John Pabodie and Elizabeth Alden; John Alden and Priscilla Mullins
- Charles Frederic Garcelon and Edyth Muriel Barker
- David Garcelon
I found an obituary in the Lewiston Evening Journal dated Monday, 15 January 1872, for David’s 4th great grandfather William Green Garcelon (1796-1872), husband of Mary Davis, daughter of Quaker Daniel Davis and Mary Collins. They had two children: Mary Ann Garcelon Clark; and Alonzo Garcelon, Maine’s surgeon general during the Civil War, mayor of Lewiston, and 36th governor.
The headlines read: “Death of Col. Garcelon – A Christian Patriarch and Venerated Citizen at Rest.”
The memorial to Col. Garcelon revealed a man of deep character, highly intelligent, with a love for his community. He was noted as “a model Christian citizen – the noblest Roman of them all,” who “labored for every good cause.”
He started the first Sunday school for children in the area. He also secured the farm property of Abel and Isaac Goddard to create a home for the poor. You can read all about that and many town activities in his diary preserved by the Androscoggin Historical Society.
He was a surveyor, town clerk, selectman, tax collector, antiquarian, and record keeper.
Also mentioned in the obituary is a family gathering that took place a year before Col. Garcelon died. The meeting of the Garcelon brothers was featured in the Lewiston Evening Journal on 19 October 1871.
This article reported:
One of the most remarkable family gatherings that we have ever known, was had at Mayor Garcelon’s to-day noon, where Col. Wm. Garcelon (the Mayor’s father) and five brothers – all but one beyond three score years and ten – met at dinner, the first time they all ever gathered together around the table. Their ages are as follows: Col. Wm. Garcelon of Lewiston, 86; James Garcelon of Lewiston, 83; Isaac Garcelon of St. Davids, New Brunswick, 81; Joseph Garcelon of St. Davids, 79; Moses Garcelon of Troy, 77; Harris Garcelon of Livermore Falls, 67 – united ages 473, average about 79. There was one brother absent, Harvey of Boston, aged 69, and one sister, Mrs. Henry Fuller of Lewiston, aged 87, who was too infirm to be present.
This remarkable meeting was accidental in part. The two brothers from New Brunswick came here on a visit by private conveyance, and calling on the brother in Troy on their journey, he joined them, and came to Lewiston, when the others were sent for. The family of Col. Garcelon, the father, consisted of eleven children – eight boys and three girls. One son and two daughters are dead. All but two or three of the younger members of the family were born on the old Garcelon homestead in this city, now owned by Mayor Garcelon. Some seventy-five or eighty years ago the only store within 20 miles of here was kept by the father of these brothers at this homestead.
The old books of the store, now in the Mayor’s possession, show accounts with men living in all the towns in this section, kept in pounds, shillings and pence. Nails were then sold by count instead of weight. Isaac Garcelon, who left Lewiston about sixty years ago, informs us that in 1810 there was only one house, besides the Ferry House, between the falls and Read’s Ferry, two miles below here, and that one the Abner Harris house near where the Continental Mill stands. On the Auburn side there was only one house – the Welch house.
Our readers can imagine the feelings with which these brothers met around the dinner table and recalled past memories. It was indeed a pleasant gathering. After dinner, the brothers visited a daguerreotype saloon and had their photographs taken. [See photo at beginning of this article.]
David also has an image of the parents of the Garcelon boys.
Their father William was a shipbuilder who partnered with his cousin John Babson Lane (1774-1821). Both were born in Gloucester, Massachusetts, and shared great grandparents: Benjamin Harraden (1671-1724) and Deborah Norwood (1677-1762).
John and William’s parents moved from Gloucester to the District of Maine just before the beginning of the Revolution. William’s parents, James Garcelon and Deliverance Annis, were known to have been in Falmouth (now Portland), Maine, on that fateful day in October 1775 when British Captain Mowatt bombarded and burned a large part of Falmouth to the ground.
James and Deliverance fled to Freeport with their children, and the 12-year-old William would have been with them. Many years later, when James Garcelon’s estate was probated, he died owning a shipyard in Freeport at Porter’s Landing.
William and his cousin operated their business. The Freeport Historical Society collection has an account book of their business: Garcelon & Lane.
Stay tuned for the firsthand account of how Dr. Alonzo Garcelon helped bring slaves from the South to Maine during the War of the States.
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Note on the header image: the Garcelon brothers, 1871. Courtesy of David Garcelon of Maine. He is a surveyor, historian and author.
