Here are links to Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4 of George Rogers Tarbox’s life sketch.

This part portion of the life sketch of George Rogers Tarbox includes just 4 generations of his descendants, as some of the fifth generation are living.

Descendant List of George Rogers Tarbox & Mary Elizabeth Scripture

To end the life sketch of George Rogers Tarbox, here are some photos that have descended down the family line although none of these people have been identified. Some might be friends, but perhaps descendants will be able to identify some of the others.

This ancestor life sketch will end with my contact information and put into PDF format to be shared with George’s descendants. If there were any QR codes, they would be noted and shared here.

This ends my first deep-dive ancestor life sketch and I’m quite pleased with all the details I’ve been able to learn about George, his life and his family. Hmmm. Maybe I’ll create one for another 3X great grandparent!

Life changed quite a bit for the Tarbox family with the loss of wife and mother, Mary.

In 1870, George and his children were living in Ward 4 in the city of Calais. George was quite well to do compared to his neighbors, as he reported his real estate value at $4000 and his personal property at $400. His occupation was listed as tombstone manufacturer, which may have been the main product from the granite quarry at the time. Not surprisingly, Lizzie was enumerated with the job of keeping house while the younger children were at school.

Although George had no family close by, he kept in touch with siblings in the New Gloucester area. Whether contact was with in-person visits or by mail isn’t known, but family photos were shared. George and his younger brother, Benjamin, certainly shared a family resemblance:

It seems that big city life in Massachusetts wasn’t for Ben, either, as his children were all born in Maine. Ben didn’t remain in New Gloucester, though. He moved into the city of Lewiston, which bordered New Gloucester. Lewiston, at the time, like Lowell, Massachusetts, was known for its textile mills. Ben followed the same occupation as George started with and was a mill worker in 1860, 1870 and 1880, all in Lewiston.

George also kept in touch with his sister Susan (Tarbox) Greenwood’s family and received a photo of his nephew, Louis DeAlvere Greenwood, taken c1870:

The 1870s brought still more change in George’s life as he began to divest himself of real estate holdings. On 19 February 1870, he sold a parcel of the “back quarry” to George W. Hall of Boston for $300. A year later, on 15 March 1871, he quit claimed his homestead located on Main Street, Calais, which was described as part of the Pettygrew farm, for just one dollar to Harriet N. Rounds. Finally, on 20 March 1874, George was paid $2000 by Joseph Granger for George’s ownership rights to multiple parcels of land in the granite quarry. George was still relatively young – in his 50s – so perhaps quarry dust was having an effect on his health or else he preferred to have cash in his pocket.

Photography had become quite fashionable and affordable and George sat for a photograph c1875:

By 1880, George’s children were all grown and married, except for son Charles. Daughter Nellie had married Calvin Segee Adams in 1875 and the 19 June 1880 census showed the Adams household in Calais’s Ward 5 as home to Calvin, Nellie, Calvin’s daughter Lulu from his first marriage, son Charles plus George and Charles Tarbox. George was a gravestone manufacturer and Charles a marble worker. So, although George had sold his ownership stake in the business, he was still working.

George had been civic-minded throughout his adult life. After the demise of the Whig Party, to which he belonged in the 1850s when he lived in Newburyport, George joined the Republican Party.

In 1884, he presided over a Republican rally held in Calais:

George was still actively working in the stone manufacturing business and sponsored this ad in the General Directory of Calais, Maine and St. Stephen, New Brunswick, 1890-1891:

Representative Business Men of Calais, Eastport and Vicinity, Maine, published in 1892, Newark, New Jersey by George F. Bacon contained a short sketch about George’s business:

Little is known about George’s final years, other than he was living in Calais, likely with daughter Nellie’s family, until he died on 27 January 1895 of general exhaustion.

George was prominent enough in Calais that he warranted an obituary rather than just a death notice:

George was buried in Calais Cemetery with wife Mary and eventually joined by his son Oliver and Oliver’s wife, Jennie, sharing a family plot.

George and Mary (Scripture) Tarbox have descendants today. Their children Mary Elizabeth and George Rogers Jr. died in childhood and son Oliver married, but had no children.

Their other four children married and are the lines of descent from George today.

Elizabeth Tarbox married Charles Stiles Vickery, 23 September 1871 in Calais. Charles was born in Maine on 2 March 1847 and died on 22 January 1900 in Calais. Elizabeth survived him by many years, dying on 27 May 1928, also in Calais. They were the parents of five children.

Nellie F. Tarbox married Calvin Segee Adams on 1 February 1875 in Calais. Calvin was born on 15 March 1843 on Adams Island, Charlotte, New Brunswick, Canada and was the great grandson of Loyalist John Adams. He died on 15 January 1921 in St. Stephen, New Brunswick, Canada. Nellie survived him by almost seven years, passing away on 27 December 1927 in Boston, Suffolk, Massachusetts while visiting daughter Pearl to get out of the harsh Maine winter. They were the parents of two children.

Charles Franklin Tarbox married Cleantha (Cannie) Cochran on 19 October 1881 in Milltown, New Brunswick, Canada. Cannie, as she was known, was born on 23 April 1859, New Brunswick, Canada and died in 1942 in Attleboro, Bristol, Massachusetts. Charles died shortly before his wife on 25 June 1941 in South Attleboro, Bristol, Massachusetts. They had four children.

Horace W. Tarbox married Elizabeth Eugenia Lane on 13 June 1881 in Calais. Elizabeth was born on 26 June 1859 in Calais and died on 9 April 1947, also in Calais. Horace predeceased Elizabeth by many years, dying on 8 June 1914 of bronchial pneumonia in Sharon, Norfolk, Massachusetts. They were the parents of one daughter.

For whatever reason, there are no known photos of Horace and Elizabeth. However, there are a number of unidentified subjects in photos to be shared at the end of this life sketch. Perhaps they can be found in that group.

Oliver Scripture Tarbox married Jennie Deborah Mingo on 1 June 1887 in Calais. She was was born on 17 July 1864 and died on 19 August 1925, both in Calais. Oliver died on 15 January 1924 in Calais. They had no children. There are no known photos of Oliver and Jennie.

The last section of the life story of George Rogers Tarbox will post on Saturday.

George was 36 years old with a wife and three year old daughter when he decided to move his family to the Calais, Washington, Maine area. How they made the long journey isn’t known, but it’s very possible they sailed from Newburyport up the New England coast to Calais, which was a ship building area with a large harbor. Travel by land meant a 300 mile trip by coach. Since George was economically comfortable, he may have had the economic advantage of being able to sail to Maine. The easiest form of travel would have been preferable since Mary was likely pregnant with their son, George Rogers Tarbox, born later in 1854 in Maine.

The family settled in rural Robbinston, Washington, Maine, a few miles down the road from the big city of Calais.

George’s new business venture appeared in the 1856 Maine business directory with his listing under Hardware, located in Red Beach [near Robbinston and Calais along the coast road]. Land records revealed George’s ownership of the Red Beach plaster and granite quarry. His business partner was Charles Harrison Newton, living in Ward 5 of Calais in 1860:

A biographical sketch published after George Tarbox’s death provides more information about the quarry business:

American middle class life had fully emerged as the country approached the Civil War years. Travel was easier, improvements in the postal service meant quicker, less expensive and more frequent contact with distant relatives and photography was becoming available to the masses.

All of this had an impact on the Tarbox family and, overall, the 1850s were a time of happiness and prosperity. They welcomed three more children, siblings for their daughter Elizabeth.

George Jr. was born soon after their arrival in Maine in 1854, although his exact date of birth is unknown. Nellie F. (her middle name has never been discovered) was born on 28 June 1856 and Charles Franklin was born on 13 May 1859. All the children were born in Robbinston.

The 1860 census places the Tarboxes in Robbinston in Dwelling 21, Family 22.

Notice, thanks to Google maps, that Red Beach borders Robbinston to the North.

That’s important because, by 1860, Mary’s sister had come to visit, met and married Benjamin Shattuck (18 November 1858, Calais, Maine) and gave birth to their first child, Annie G., on 3 February 1860 in Red Beach.

One sad event occurred in 1860, the death of George’s father, William Tarbox, who had been in declining health to the point where his family in New Gloucester was unable to care for him and had him placed in the Maine State Hospital. William’s stay there was a short three weeks before he passed away.

George might have made the trip from Calais to Augusta to visit his father one last time because there is a curious photo that has been passed down through the family.

Thomas B. Ballard (1838-1881) was the manager of the Cushnoc House in Augusta, Maine. George might have stayed there on a visit to his father in 1860. Thomas Ballard is a young man in the photo, supporting a birth year of 1838, and the photo style fits the Civil War era. Additionally, Starbird Photographer was active in Augusta in 1860. Perhaps George kept the photo to remind him of his last visit with his father.

On 20 April 1861, George and Mary’s son, Horace W., was born in Robbinston.

George’s business ventures were going well. He not only had the plaster quarry up and running, he ventured into ship building. The schooner Nellie Tarbox, named for daughter Nellie, was built in 1862, weighing 168 60/95ths tons. News items state that the schooner was sailing on 18 July 1862, three days out of Havana on the way to Philadelphia. That was quite a voyage during the Civil War years.

George, an industrious man always looking to increase his income, was appointed Deputy Inspector and Collector at the Customs House on 23 May 1863. Calais was just across the river from St. Stephen, New Brunswick, Canada. I assume from George’s job description that he might have been assigned at the St. Croix River crossing there unless there was a closer port in the Robbinston area, perhaps for smaller vessels.

By this time, the United States Civil War had started. George’s name appears on the 1863 list of the 5th Enrollment, Maine, aged 44 years, but he was not called to serve.

In November 1863, George purchased the granite quarry in Red Beach and it remained in his possession until his death.

On 10 July 1864, his eldest son, George Rogers, Jr., died at the age of 10 years, but there is no cause of death given in the town record.

Perhaps not a coincidence, just four months later, in November 1864, George sold his land in Robbinston and the family moved into the city of Calais.

At the close of the Civil War, George’s schooner, the Nellie Tarbox, was sold in Rockport, Maine for $9000.00 and in 1866, it was reported that George was paid $210 in his job as customs inspector.

1866 was a year of mixed emotions for George. His wife, Mary, died on 11 March 1866 in Calais. This is a tintype photo of Mary, which seems to be a post-mortem image, popular at the time. Notice how her hands are placed, her eyes are closed and there is a blanket draping the bottom of her elegant dress. There is also a brace behind her, propping her up:

This photo of George was probably taken at the same time, as it is also a tintype:

Just one month later, George purchased a home in Calais and the family moved. Because George never remarried, it is likely that his eldest daughter Lizzie, not quite 15 years old when her mother died, had to step up and take her mother’s place as the lady of the house, as she had four younger siblings, aged 2 to 9 years old. Caring for a house and four young children while her father was at work would be a heavy load for any young teenager.

George also joined the St. Croix Masons Lodge #46 that same year. Although he was a member for 14 years, it doesn’t appear that he was terribly active. He was, however, reinstated on 5 June 1894, just seven months before he died. Perhaps he wanted a Mason funeral sendoff.

Considering that George lost a son in 1864 and his wife at the young age of 39 in 1866, the 1860s decade was much more difficult for George and his young family.

The next portion of George’s life sketch will post tomorrow.