Parents | Parents | |||||
Thomas Lemaster | Jane Bessom | Capt. Arnold Martin | Mary Oliver | |||
b. 1754 Isle Of Jersey | bp. 6 May 1656 in Marblehead | b. 27 Oct 1765 in Marblehead | b. 11 Nov 1864 in Marblehead | |||
d. bef 28 Mar 1803 Marblehead | d. 10 Feb 1828 in Marblehead | d. 22 Aug 1829 in Marblehead | d 24 Mar 1838 in Marblehead | |||
HUSBAND | WIFE | |||||
George Lemaster | Mary Oliver Martin | |||||
b. 7 Jul 1793 in Marblehead, Essex, Massachusetts | bp. 15 Dec 1799 in Marblehead, Essex, Massachusetts | |||||
d. 2 Nob 1878 in Marblehead, Essex, Massachusetts | d. 17 Sep 1844 in Marblehead, Essex, Massachusetts | |||||
Relationship Events | ||||||
Marriage | 14 May 1820 | Mary Oliver Martin to Benjamin Valentine | ||||
Marriage | 25 May 1823 | George Lemaster to Remember Bean | ||||
Marriage | 24 Aug 1825 | George Lemaster to Mary Oliver Martin Valentine | ||||
Children | ||||||
Son b. abt. Jul 1827 in Marblehead; d. 17 Sep 1828 at 13 months in Marblehead | ||||||
Thomas Lemaster b. 56 Jan 1833 in Marblehead; d. 21 Jan 1841 in Marblehead | ||||||
George Lemaster, Jr. b. abt. 1829 (baptized 6 Jan 1833 at 4 years of age) in Marblehead; m. Mary Ellen Girdler b. Abt. 1832; d. Unknown); six children: Sarah E., Mary H., Jennie B., George 3rd, Unknown Male, Annie G. Lemaster; d. 23 Aug 1901 of apoplexy in Marblehead | ||||||
Mary Oliver Lemaster b. 7 Jun 1835 in Marblehead; m. 1) 25 Nov 1852 in Marblehead Jacob Henry Alley (b.1834 in Lynn, Essex, Massachusetts, d. 12 Mar 1862 in Washington, DC); two children: Mary Elizabeth (died young) and Elizabeth "Lizzie" Alley); m. 2) 25 Apr 1867 in Marblehead Thomas Martin Harris (b. abt. 1832 in Marblehead, d. 28 Apr 1913 in Atlantic City, Atlantic, New Jersey); three children: Martha M., Mary Oliver, and Thomas Martin Harris, Jr.; d. 20 May 1917 in Atlantic City | ||||||
Sarah Jane Lemaster b. 3 Sep 1837 in Marblehead; d. 29 Sep 1837 in Marblehead | ||||||
Son b. Feb 1840 in Marblehead; d. 22 Aug 1840 in Marblehead |
George Lemaster and his future wife were both born and raised in Marblehead, Essex County, Massachusetts, and both were the offspring of mariners. George was the son of a Jersey Islands immigrant, Thomas LeMaistre, who anglicized his name to Lemaster. and Jane Bessom, who had been born in Marblehead to a Jersey Isles immigrant and his Marblehead wife. The name "Bessom" was spelled in various ways: Bisson, Bessome, Bessom, Besom.
George and Mary were both married to first spouses, both of whom died within months of their marriage. Mary Oliver Martin married Benjamin Valentine on 14 May 1820. Benjamin and George Lemaster were fellow soldiers in Lt. Colonel B. S. Reed's Regiment in Marblehead in the War of 1812. Benjamin died in Charleston, South Carolina only two months later on 17 Jul 1820. The record of his death does not explain why he was in South Carolina at that time, although it does say that he was the "mate of Captain Joshua Orne".
George's first wife was Remember Bean, whom he married on 25 May 1823. She died five months later of "fever" on 20 Oct 1823. George and Mary Oliver Martin Valentine were married in August of 1825.
We know from census records that George was some kind of merchant, and the listing below confirms he was a trader. On the 1870 Census, he identified himself as a retired grocer. A City Directory in 1871 identified him as the only dealer under Crockery, China, Glassware, and Earthenware.
Their married lives included the births of six children, but sadly, only two survived to adulthood, and Mary herself died of "consumption" at the age of 45 or so. Three of their children died as infants or toddlers, and their son Thomas, named for his grandfather, died "suddenly" at the age of 9. George outlived his wife by 34 years. After his daughter was widowed, she and her daughter resided with him until her second marriage. Census and City Directory listings indicate that George, Jr. and his family lived with him from at least 1865 until his death.
Their second surviving child was our direct ancestor Mary Oliver Lemaster. Born in 1835, she married Jacob Alley and had two daughters, Mary Elizabeth and Lizzie, before he died in service in Washington, DC during the Civil War. She was pregnant with Lizzie when her oldest daughter died at a young age. A State Census in 1865 showed Mary and Lizzie Alley living with Mary's father. Her brother and his family were also there.
She married in 1867 Thomas Martin Harris, the son of one of the two largest shoe manufacturers in Marblehead, and they had three children Martha, Mary, and Thomas Jr. before they relocated to Philadelphia where Thomas started his own shoe manufacturing firm.
A troubling news article appeared in a Boston Newspaper involving two shopkeepers, George and Polly Lemaster, who were arrested for accepting raw goods stolen from shoe factories. These events occurred about ten years before his daughter married Thomas, who worked closely with his father and two brothers in their shoe factory. Would this trouble between the two families have been the reason the couple waited so long to marry? (If the dates are correct, their daughter was born only six weeks after their marriage).
Arnold Martin left his daughter, "Mary Lemaster," $10 in his will. Several of the Vital Records tie the parents and the children to each other.
The goal of this project is to trace every line of ancestry to the arrival of its first immigrant to America. The basic information of each couple is considered complete when we know the dates of birth, marriage, and death for both spouses. their parents' names (or whether they were the immigrant), and the child or children in our ancestry line.
The research on this family is complete.