I have long been envious of several blogging friends who post constant news clippings giving all kinds of interesting details about family members and businesses in which they are involved.
My personal newspaper clipping collection isn’t terribly small, but there is a huge difference in the sources of my clippings and those that others are finding online.
My clippings are original paper cutouts, most often with no exact date or name of the newspaper the news items are from. Everyone else is finding tons of information on sites like Chronicling America or state historical newspapers websites.
The positive aspect of this issue is that Maine and New Jersey are slowly – very slowly – starting to get with the program and digitizing their historical newspapers.
While nothing of interest has been found yet for New Jersey, I have made several small finds in Maine newspapers.
My mother’s paternal line includes my 4X great grandparents, Oliver Scripture and Mary Goddard Bucknam. Their daughter, Mary Elizabeth, married George Rogers Tarbox and settled in Calais, Maine.
The Scriptures were originally from Mason, New Hampshire, but spent their later years in Glenburn, Maine. Mary Elizabeth was the fourth of eleven children born to them. Oliver Shepley Scripture, the second child, was her oldest brother.
I found vital dates for Oliver years ago, but knew little about his life. Well, two tidbits popped up in The Republican Journal on 31 January 1878 and the Portland Daily Press, 9 October 1882.
O.S. Scripture was appointed the Glenburn postmaster in 1878:
By 1882, he moved up to the big time – North Bangor:
It’s fun to finally find something, anything, about my family in historical newspapers.
That wasn’t my only Maine discovery, though. I was aware that my 3X great grandfather had commissioned a schooner to be built in 1862 and he named her the Nellie Tarbox. Nellie was my 2X great grandmother:
My most exciting find was learning a bit more about the schooner Nellie Tarbox:
On 18 July 1862, she was three days out of Havana, Cuba on her way to Philadelphia. Travel must have been somewhat dangerous since the United States was in the middle of the Civil War:
In October 1862, she was still working the Caribbean run and was being loaded up for a trip to Cuba:
She was sold to new owners in Rockland, Maine in 1865. Price: $9000, so she was a nice boat!
In 1868, she had sailed from Savannah, Georgia on her way to Baltimore:
I now know when she was built, that she sailed for Calais owners until 1865 and she continued to sail at least into 1868.
I wonder how aware my great great grandmother was that she had a schooner named for her and if she ever kept track of its marine history.
Recently, I discovered the Passaic Herald News online, too. Finally!!!! My family first settled there about 1890 and it was my home until 1963. I mined about 100 news items over one free access weekend on a subscription site. I wish it was on Chronicling America, but better some place than no place!
I would dearly love to see the digitized Calais Advertiser appear on Chronicling America. Reading those issues would keep me busy for a year, as I had family there from the 1830s to the 1930s.
Well, I can only hope!