My Old Ohio Home

Samuel Page II and Joseph Page, of Orono, Maine

Working back through the Page family in Bangor and Orono, Maine, we come to Joseph Page, a railroad engineer who married Abigail Dudley. Those might not have been the most characteristic attributes of Joseph, but they help identify him among the other Joseph Pages in the area and in my records.

At any rate, when I started researching the family I arrived at the conclusion that he was the son of Samuel Page II and Julia/Judith Dudley. "Arrived at" describes the process, since I never found a birth record for Joseph or for any of Samuel II's children. So why did I put him in that family? For the following reasons:

  1. Joseph's second marriage record, to Carrie (Baker) Emery in 1903 said his father's name was Samuel.1
  2. Joseph's censuses pointed to a birth about 1831. Joseph's first marriage was in 1854, meaning he'd probably be in his father's household in 1850. The 1850 household of Samuel Page II and Julia Page in Orono includes a son Joseph, age 19.2
  3. There was another Samuel Page in Orono at the time–the husband of Harriet Wiggins. His 1840 household included a male between 5 and 10 who could be Joseph, but in 1850 we learn that Samuel and Harriet's 17 year old son was named Charles.3, 4
  4. On that 1850 census, Samuel and Julia had a daughter named Eunice, age 8. She died in January 1860 and in August of that year Joseph named his newborn daughter Eunice.5, 6
  5. On July 6, 1848, Samuel Page 2nd and someone named Joseph Page bought land in Orono from Nathaniel Treat described as "beginning at the Southeasterly corner of Lot numbered Sixty six."7

At the time, that was enough evidence to say that Joseph Page was the son of Samuel Page II and Julia Dudley.

Penobscot County Land Records

A month or so ago a descendant of Joseph told me about a new section of familysearch.org, namely https://www.familysearch.org/en/labs/. Familysearch has done an OCR scan of some older records that haven't been indexed yet and one set of records is the U.S. Land and Probate Records 1630-1975, including those for Penobscot County, Maine. You can do a full text search of them at the lab section of the site.

I've been going through them and, lo and behold, the land purchased by Samuel and a Joseph Page in 1848 was part of Joseph Page the railroad engineer's estate when probated in 1913. His will mentions "1/2 part of a lot consisting of 6 acres in common and undivided, being part of Lot 66 known at Nathaniel Treat lot in Orono."8 So he was the Joseph Page who was part purchaser in the 1848 deal.

Conclusion

That seems to sew things up as far as Joseph being the son of Samuel Page II. Hopefully the newly available records will clear up a few other questions about the Pages in Orono and Bangor–I would really like to identify Samuel II's father.

Footnotes

1 "Maine Vital Records, 1670-1921", , FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:KCDH-73L : Tue Jul 09 09:27:14 UTC 2024), Entry for Joseph Page and Carrie B Emery, 01 Dec 1903.

2 1850 U.S. Census, Maine, Penobscot, Orono, Series M432, Roll 264, Page 257A, Census sheet 515.

3 1840 U.S. Census, Orono, Series M704, Roll 149, Page 255.

4 1850 U.S. Census, Orono, Series M432, Roll 264, Page 258.

5 1860 Mortality Schedule, Orono, Maine, d January 1860, Eunice Page.

6 Joseph's daughter's birth date is calculated from her age at death. She died March 4, 1867, age 6 years, 6 months, 10 days. "Maine Vital Records, 1670-1921", , FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:2HK6-Q7H : Wed Jul 17 02:15:50 UTC 2024), Entry for Eunice M Page, 04 Mar 1867.

7 Treat to Page 2nd et. al. Penobscot County Land Records, Volume 198, Page 527, July 6, 1848. https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-C37Q-V9KR-K?view=fullText&keywords=Volume+198%2CPenobscot%2CCounty%2Cland&groupId=TH-909-85638-38203-8

8 Penobscot County Land Records, Case Number 6790, Volume 321, page 434, Last will and codicil of Joseph Page, https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QS7-89XT-QP8S?view=fullText&keywords=Joseph+Page%2CMaine%2CMAINE&groupId=TH-1971-40384-17772-33.

Family Trees