A NEW CLUE IN DEED?

More and more records are coming online that are of use to genealogists and
family historians. The other night cousin Chris Dunham sent me an email to let
me know about the Oxford County Eastern District Registry of Deeds website.
Oxford County Maine is where my West and associated families moved to from
Massachusetts back in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

Chris also included the following image. 



As Chris wrote:
"I'm not sure how deeply you've delved into Oxford County deeds, but I found
a record showing that John C. West lived in Boston before coming to Canton
and marrying Arvilla Ames.

I've attached the deed from book 36, page 540, by which Elisha Turner of Peru
sold to "John West of Boston City, State of Massachusetts, Blacksmith," and Elisha
W. Thomas of Minot, blacksmith, land in Canton with a blacksmith shop on it on
16 Jan. 1827.

In book 35, page 474, Elisha W. Turner of Canton quitclaims his share of this 
property to "John West of Canton in the County of Oxford aforesaid Blacksmith" 
on 17 May 1827.

This shows that John settled in Canton in the late winter or spring of 1827—at least
four months before marrying Arvilla. Just to establish that this was the same John
West (the records don't always give his middle initial), a deed on page 542 of book
36 has John C. West of Canton, blacksmith, selling to John B. Douglas of Letter B
the same land and blacksmith shop in Canton. This was on 9 Dec. 1831. The deed 
has his wife Arvilla relinquishing her right of dower in the property."





Now this is the first time I've seen any document that has John Cutter West living
anywhere in Massachusetts other than Plymouth.  I don't know yet if John was related
somehow to either Turner or Thomas but how else would he know two blacksmiths
from Maine when he was living in Boston? The only other answer I can think of is
that perhaps they were apprentices together with another blacksmith and they decided
to set themselves up in business together in Maine.  Perhaps if I find an answer I can
break down the John Cutter West brick wall.

I went to the website and found quite a few records concerning my West family. Most
of them involve my 2x great granduncles Hiram F and Asa A West, but there are others
with transactions made by my 2x great grandmother Louisa A Richardson West and 3x
great grandmother Arvilla Ames West.  I checked this afternoon and there are also
many records involving my Ellingwood family, and I've still Richardson, Coburn, Ames,
and Barker lines to search for as well. It costs .50 cents to download a record but I plan
to go through them before I select what I want. I've already got 7 records for the sum
of $3.50!

Thanks, Chris for help and the heads up!

BTW,if you have Maine roots, be sure to visit Chris' Maine Genealogy Network page!

MORE ANSWERS ABOUT THE WEST BROTHERS

Whenever I post something here about my Dad's side of the family in
Maine, I make it a practice to post a copy of it to my blog over at
Chris Dunham's Maine Genealogy Network on the off chance that the
information I write about might prove useful to others  or might find
another unknown cousin. I did that with my post  ANSWERS AND 
QUESTIONS ABOUT THE WEST BROTHERS and Chris made
a few comments on it that answered some of the questions and
provided a link to a very interesting map!

The first comment:

The 1858 Oxford County map shows J. C. West living on the Bear River
Road (what is now Route 26), just north of Grafton town line. It appears 
to have been the same place occupied by "J. E. Brooks" on this 1880
map. Heywood's History of Upton says that Joseph E. Brooks
"built a set of buildings" here about 1870, but doesn't mention that the
Wests had earlier lived here.

The 1880 map shows J. P. West living on what is now Back Street in 
Upton. This is confirmed by Heywood, who says that Jonathan P. 
West bought a farm of Stevens Morse south of the Back Street school 
house "about 1862, living there until his death in 1917, at the age of 86.  

I followed the link and found a map of Upton and vicinity on which were
located the exact locations of Jonathan Phelps West's farm, and Hiram
West's Saw and Grist Mill. If you click on the large pink square marked
Upton and enlarge it you can see them too!

The second comment answered my question about Asa West gave up
on hops as a crop on his farm:

"I may have an answer why Asa stopped growing hops by 1880. An
article in the Lewiston Evening Journal of 8 July 1880 said that 
"hop-raising has been rather a poor business in New England for 
the last few years. The low prices ruling for the last few years 
previous to the fall of 1879, has given such a meagre return for 
the labor and land invested in the cultivation of hops that last 
year many plowed up the vines and abandoned the culture."




I followed the link Chris provided again and found the site which displays
three pages from the newspaper. The article Chris quoted is on the first
page on the left in the upper left hand side. You need to enlarge the
image to see it. There's a lot of information there about other crop
values and I plan to compare it to the 1880 agricultural schedules that
I have for the West brothers and other relatives. So my speculation
that there just wasn't a profitable market for hops in New England was
right!

Thanks Chris for those answers and for being kind enough to let me
quote your comments here!

And for those of you with Maine roots, check out the Maine Genealogy
Network!