February 26, 2025
Introduction: In this article, Melissa Davenport Berry shows a photo of the 1891 Hale family reunion and shares stories and genealogy of this family, whose ancestor arrived in the New World in 1635. Melissa is a genealogist who has a website, americana-archives.com, and a Facebook group, New England Family Genealogy and History.
The subjects in this photo are the attendees of the Hale family reunion in 1891.
Here is the list of attendees in the above photo:
These family members are among the many sons and daughters of Newbury, Massachusetts, settlers who first came to the New World in 1635.
Much of the family history of these Newbury settler scions was preserved by Stephen Pettingell Hale, aka the Old Sage of Newbury, son of Daniel Knight Hale (1808-1870) and Elizabeth Colley (Pettingell) Hale (1812-1896). He is not in the reunion photo above, but all his sisters are: Lucy Kimball (Hale) Danforth; Sarah Curtis (Hale) Little; and Georgianna Balch (Hale) Ilsley.
In case you missed the story on the early Hale progenitor of Old Newbury in my blog article Relics of Our Ancestors, it is one that needs to be repeated.
The story relates to the domestic scandal over a Hale family abode. S. P. Hale published “How Farmer Hale Diplomatically Settled a Family Dispute” in the Newburyport Daily News on Thursday, 27 January 1898, on page 2:
Here on this narrow neck of land, still stands the house or rather houses of Thomas Hale, a glover by trade, the first settler by that name.
He [Thomas Hale] was born at Watton-at-Stone in Hertfordshire, England, in 1606. He came to Newbury in 1635. His house [is] the one that Samuel Brown Dunning now lives in. He erected it about 1640-1650.
This house has an interesting tradition connected with it. After erecting it, two of the sons of Thomas Hale “betook unto themselves” wives, and father Thomas was going to build a new house for one of them, and the other one he had arranged to live in the house with himself, but the wives quarreled, as sometimes wives will, and so these Hale better halves got to quarreling as to which should have the new house. So, what did father Thomas do? But cut the old house in twain and move one half over to what was recently occupied by the late Enoch Plummer.
Then he built an addition to each, thus treating each child alike and preserving harmony in the family. Quite a piece of diplomacy on the part of father Thomas. Both houses are still standing, although both are remodeled somewhat from the original, as the original was of the colonial type of long back interior roof.
Now, back to that reunion photo.
In the crowd is a Mrs. Sarah Jane Hale (Currier) Stickney (1843-1905), born to Charles P. and Anna (Hale) Currier, who married Enoch Pierce Stickney (1833-1877), son of Capt. John Fernald and Esther Sumner (Tappan) Stickney. Also in the reunion photo is Mrs. Stickney’s daughter Edith Tappan (Stickney) Little (1861-1937), wife of George Irving Little (1860-1940), son of Henry and Phebe Little.
Capt. John F. Stickney is a direct descendant of Thomas Hale through his daughter Apphia (Hale) Rolfe. Capt. Stickney lived to the ripe old age of 102 and witnessed many events, including the celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the incorporation of the city of Newburyport in June of 1901. Here is a newspaper sketch of Capt. Stickney from the archives.
The text accompanying this sketch reads:
Oldest Man in the City.
John F. Stickney Saw the Procession in Its Entirety.
John. F. Stickney, the oldest man in the city, viewed the procession from the residence of P. H. Humprey on State Street. He was surrounded by his three daughters and as the great pageant passed, he held on his knees his great-grandson E. P. Stickney [son of Enoch P. and Sarah Jane (Currier) Stickney]. The day was an eventful one for the old gentleman, whose friends feel thankful that he enjoyed such good health as to be able to view the greatest parade in the history of Newburyport.
Here are some images of Newburyport’s 50th anniversary celebration, from the Boston Herald.
Newburyport decorated its fire station for the 50th Anniversary celebration.
Another daughter born to Enoch P. and Sarah Jane (Currier) Stickney, who is not in the reunion photo, is Florence Currier Stickney (1863-1953), who married James Noyes Worthley (1860-1928), son of Alfred G. and Mary Elizabeth (Pickard) Worthley.
Presented below are two daguerreotypes: one of Enoch P. Stickney, a Civil War vet and a bookkeeper for the Ocean Bank in Newburyport; the other is his daughter Florence Currier Stickney.
Also in the reunion photo is Sarissa (Currier) Colby (1844-1918), another daughter born to Charles P. and Anna (Hale) Currier, and wife of Captain Charles Henry Colby (1845-1931), son of George Curwen Ward and Harriet (Kitching/Kitchen) Colby. Also in the reunion photo are their children: Maud Taylor Colby; Newton Ward Colby; and Anna Hale Colby.
A few years back I donated a Colby family photo album to the Museum of Old Newbury, sent to me from California. Below are two photos from that album.
Maud Taylor Colby (1884-1950), daughter of Captain Charles Henry and Sarissa (Currier) Colby, married 1st Dr. Joseph Palmer Watts and 2nd George T. Lennon.
Below is a photo of Captain Colby.
I found Captain Colby’s obituary in the Boston Herald that notes he was “one of the best-known of the surviving sea captains of New England of the old sailing vessel days and had made many trips around the world.”
In this obituary, his wife and children are named along with two sisters: Mrs. Hattie Ellsworth of Pasadena, California, and Mrs. Hannah Roiley of Newton Junction, New Hampshire.
Stay tuned for another Hale family reunion photo from 1896.
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Note on the header image: the Hale family reunion held in 1891. Credit: Hale family descendant Susan York Gagnon.
