George Lemaster - Mary Oliver Martin Family Group

What We Know About This Family

An Overview of Their Lives

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.

About the Children

• Their son George Jr. married Mary E. Girdler, and they had six children, one unnamed male and a son George 3rd (who was a postmaster in Marblehead and drowned by suicide in 1896). Their daughter Jennie B. died of a "concussion to the brain" at the age of 10, but their other three daughters Sarah E., Mary H., and Annie G. were living together (all single) in Marblehead as late as 1930. On the 1880 Census, which was two years after his father's death, George Jr. owned a crockery store and was living in his father's house. In 1890, he lived in a different house and was a "landlord." He died in 1901.



• 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).
  

Proof of Relationship

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.

What Else We Need to Learn

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.