AMY’S INDULGENCES: SEBEC, ME

I’ve always been curious about my Native American roots. I’m told that my great-grandmother Charlotte (Johnston) HIll’s family came from Dover-Foxcroft, ME and was “Indian”.  I imagine, from the tales that my aunt told me growing up, that her grandmother was “full-blood” and was swept off her feet and whisked back to Lowell by one of the first white settlers of the area which has been documented as around 1805.

Well we know now, that there is more to that story! I have not been able to find a birth record for Charlotte.  In the Dracut Marriage Register from 1905 recording her marriage to John A Hill, she is said to have been born in Lowell in 1886 to John F. Johnston and Sarah Ann Murray, but I can’t find her listed in that birth register. John F. Johnston was born in Sebec, ME and both his father and grandfather were named Calvin B. Johnston; the grandfather was born in 1796 in Sebec as well. They are both buried in the Sebec Corner Cemetary.

There is no record of the elder Calvin or his parents previous to that reference of his birth on his death certificate dated Nov. 14, 1854.  His son Calvin B. fought for the Union in the Civil War and later became a police sargent.  The area was settled in 1800.

Well, I will have to take another trip up there at some point and see what information I can dig up!

History of Sebec, ME: http://history.rays-place.com/me/sebec-me.htm

Here is a link to the history of nearby Dover-Foxcroft: http://archive.org/stream/doverfoxcroftreg00mitc/doverfoxcroftreg00mitc_djvu.txt

More interesting is Thoreau’s account of the Abernaki Tribe when he visited the area in 1853.  http://thoreau.eserver.org/chesck05.html