Polly Armstrong and her family
Polly married Ferdinand Amesly Armstrong on October 14 1823 in the Anglican Church in Woodstock, Carleton County, New Brunswick, Canada.
Ferdinand was the son of Richard Armstrong and his wife Catherine. Richard is originally from Greta Green, Scotland. Richard wife is Catherine Elizabeth Schaffner, born in Luneburg, Nova Scotia, Canada, to one of the local German protestant families. Ferdinand was born about 1797 and raised in Wilmot, Annapolis County, Nova Scotia. He and one of his brothers, James, later moved to western New Brunswick.
Ferdinand would meet and marry Mary Ellen aka Polly. Supposedly right after their marriage, Ferdinand and Polly moved to Maysville Township where they built their home and farmed. Their first child, Catherine, was born on September 7, 1824 and was said to be the first white child born in Maysville (Presque Isle, ME). Maysville is the northern part of the City of Presque Isle, Aroostook, ME.
Ferdinand and Polly would have eleven children of their own, seven sons and four daughters, and would adopt a girl named Emily Emma Tardy.
Their daughters were:
Catherine, who married James Ashby; (Wilmot Ashby is their son)
Anne, who married James Johnstone;
Bertha, who married Jacob Bailey Weeks;
Florence, who married John Wallace Bishop; and
Emily Emma Tardy would marry James Albert Armstrong.
Their sons were:
Jonathan, who stayed in Maysville and never married;
George Nelson who became a Sea Captain and would travel the world. He married twice, first Analucia Rogers, then Harriet Ellsworth.
Ferdinand Jr. moved to Wisconsin and he also was married twice, first to Maria Therese Harris, then to Katherine Nelligan.
Hiram John would go west to Wisconsin with his brother Ferdinand, he would marry Philline Morrison.
Moses Frank would also move to Wisconsin like his older brothers. Moses married twice, first to Abigail True, then to a woman named Louisa Gagnon.
Allen Wilmot moved west and settled in Spokane, Washington and he married a woman named Laura Again, I do not know Laura’s maiden name.
The youngest son Warren S. would die in the Civil War. Warren died June 20, 1862 at age of 18 at Chichahominy sic, near Charles City, Virginia.
Ferdinand and Polly’s sons were among the many Mainer’s who moved west in the 1860’s and 1870’s. When the children were young, Ferdinand and Polly would visit with Polly’s married sisters and brother who lived in Caribou, Maine.
Ferdinand and Polly were well known and active in their home town of town of Maysville. They are found in census records for what is now Presque Isle, Maine in 1830, 1840, 1850 and 1860. Then Polly is found in the 1870 &1880 census after Ferdinand’s death on July 17, 1860. Polly would died on October 15, 1886 and they are buried in Union Cemetery in Fort Fairfield, Maine.
Later in life, Polly moved to Fort Fairfield to be closer to her married daughters, Catherine Ashby and Anne Johnstone. Bertha and her husband Jacob Weeks would run the family homestead in Maysville after Jonathan Armstrong’s death in 1872. Eventually Bertha and Jacob moved to Mapleton, Maine.
In next month’s column you will find out Polly’s maiden name and who her Caribou relatives are.
This Old Tree, March 2013 by Dennis Prue is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at ac-gs.org.