Thaxter, Theodore Gilman

Maynard married Murch, Esther Blanche on 05 Feb 1928 in Somerville, Middlesex Co., MA. Esther (daughter of Murch, Horatio Clifton and Damon, Abigail Blanche) was born on 14 Apr 1901 in Buckfield, Oxford Co., ME; died on 05 Dec 1952 in Buckfield, Oxford Co., ME; was buried in Buckfield, Oxford Co., ME. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Tombstone Photo: Buckfield, Oxford Co., ME; Buckfield Village Cemetery

Other Events and Attributes:

• Tombstone Photo: Buckfield, Oxford Co., ME; Buckfield Village Cemetery

Horatio married Damon, Abigail Blanche on 21 Oct 1900 in Buckfield, Oxford Co., ME. Abigail (daughter of Damon, Joseph Bradbury and Drake, Esther Merrill Jordan) was born on 09 Jun 1876 in Sumner, Oxford Co., ME; died on 02 Nov 1940 in Mexico, Oxford Co., ME; was buried in Buckfield, Oxford Co., ME. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Tombstone Photo: Buckfield, Oxford Co., ME; Buckfield Village Cemetery
• Census: 04 Jun 1880, Sumner, Oxford Co., ME

Notes:

Married:
Married by Henry C. Munson

Alden married Bearce, Hattie. Hattie was born in Hebron, Oxford Co., ME; died before 1900. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Military: Civil War Veteran Served from 15 August 1862 to 1865 Private in Co. I. 11th Regt. Inf. ME. Volunteers Transferred to Invalid Corps in 1865
• Tombstone Photo: Buckfield, Oxford Co., ME; Buckfield Village Cemetery
• Census: 30 Aug 1850, Sumner, Oxford Co., ME
• Census: 16 Jun 1860, Buckfield, Oxford Co., ME; Joseph and wife living with John Miller Damon
• Census: 17 Jun 1870, Sumner, Oxford Co., ME; Farmer
• Census: 04 Jun 1880, Sumner, Oxford Co., ME

Notes:

Joseph was a Civil War veteran. He was with the Maine volunteers. He was called "JB". by both family and friends. He was a farmer, and a woodsman and the last Civil War veteran in Buckfield. When Veterans Day came around each year the parade would stop In front of Alton's house with JB on the porch when he could no longer walk in the parade and they would stop and play a song out of respect for what he had done. He would often remind his children of the values of loving your country and your town. He was a very patriotic and a good family man, and a church goer. Geneva Damon his granddaughter talked very respectfully of JB and his two sons and the values they shared. JB lived in the house that Jonathan had built and his granddaughter Geneva was the last Damon to live in the Damon homestead near the Damon Cemetery.
Joseph enlisted August 15, 1852 from Bridgton, Me. to serve 3 years as a private in Co. I, 11th Reg., Maine Volunteers Infantry. While in the service and while in the line of duty, he was taken sick with chills and fever and sent to the hospital at Hilton Head, South Carolina where he remained for 4 weeks. When he returned to his Reg., while building tents, he fell striking his right side and was sent to Beaufort, South Carolina, where he remained in the hospital for about 1 year, serving in the 2nd battalion of the Invalid Corps. He was then sent North to Central Park Hospital, New York City, and then came home on a furlough. He returned to Augusta and later to Central Park Hospital. He rejoined his Reg. at Deep Bottom and did some light duty, when he was again taken sick and sent to Reg. Hospital, then went on board transport and proceeded to Fort Schuyler, after which he was sent to Augusta, Me. where he was honorably discharged May 15, 1865 by reason of disability. Following is a section at the bottom of his record. This picture of the Easel Chapel Monument bearing the personal record of Joseph B. Damon was dedicated to him December 1, 1894, by his wife Ester M.

This is a story written by Geneva V Damon about her grandfather, Joseph Bradbury Damon.
Gramp, by Geneva Damon

I think I remember Gramp most often in church. Whenever the minister strikes an especially telling blow on the side of the angels, I can hear Grandfather's ringing "Hallelujah!" or "A-a-men!" I can also feel myself squirm with embarrassment and wish I might drop through the floor. It made no difference to Gramp that nobody else in the congregation did this. If he felt it, he said it!

For that matter, I doubt if anyone else raced horses on their way home from church. Perhaps Gramp didn't consider it racing, exactly. Certainly no money changed hands over the outcome. It was just that he liked fast horses, and he had a fast horse. It happened that we had a neighbor about a half-mile up the road who also had a fast horse. I don't think that she ever went to church, but Vestie always seemed to be in the village on Sunday morning, and just starting for home when we came from church behind Black Billy.

I'm sure both horses looked forward to these encounters. Billy's ears would prick up when he spotted Black Sambo in the Square, and people and dogs learned to scramble for the sidewalks when the two blacks headed across the Bridge and made the turn for High Street.

My legs were still so short that when I sat back on the wagon seat, as instructed by Gramp, my legs could only stick straight out in front of me. So my place was in the middle, with a death-grip on Grandfather's arm on one side and that of my sister on the other. I was scared half to death, but wouldn't have missed it for the world.

After the long up-slope of High Street, there was a short level stretch, then a long down hill sweep where we really picked up speed. Gramp hardly tightened the reins but spoke softly to Billy, "Woosh, back now, Whoosh, back!" Billy knew that this didn't mean for him to slow down, only to be careful how he stepped.

At the foot of this hill was our house, but we whizzed on by with no thought of stopping. Then we were on the plains with a clear straightaway. Here was where you had to watch out for Vestie and Sambo. They'd pass us if they could, before we got to the steep pitch beyond the cemetery. The wagon swayed from side to side and the dust rose in clouds as we thundered down and swooped across the Pond Brook Bridge, and on past Vestie's house.

It was really a horse race. I don't think either driver ever used the whip. Whoever was in the lead making the turn around the watering trough in the Upper Village, about two miles from the starting point, was considered the winner for that day. Going back, Vestie would drop out at her place and we rolled on home to Sunday dinner.

Grandfather must have been in his seventies when I first remember these excursions. He was a fine looking gentleman in his Sunday best. A broad-shouldered, rugged man, just under six feet in height, Blue eyes, white hair and a well-trimmed white mustache. One occasion, probably an Old Home Sunday, when the Honorable John Davis Long, who had been Sec. of the Navy in Pres. William McKinley's administration, had returned to town for the celebration. He and Gramp stood outside the church talking together, and they looked enough alike to be brothers. Furthermore, you could not have told at a glance which was the farmer and which the politician.

I do not think Gramp would have been a success as a politician, and I never heard that he had any ambitions in that direction. He was a firm believer in a man's right to run his own affairs as he saw fit and expected neither help nor interference from anyone. When the government first began legislating how many acres one could plant on this and that, and paying farmers not to farm, my brother would often remark, "It's a lucky thing that Gramp isn't around now and trying to farm. He'd be in jail half the time!"

By the time I can remember him, Gramp's temper was under better control than in his younger days. I do know that he was not patient with animals when they didn't do just as he expected them to. Once when a colt kicked him and broke his wrist, my brothers were far from sympathetic, and said it served him right.

I recall hearing about one incident involving Mr. Atwood, the store keeper, and a pair of rubber boots. Evidently, Gramp felt he had been gypped on the deal. He marched into the store and said as much, and probably more, to Mr. Atwood. I don't know what, if anything, the store keeper said, but Grandfather reached across the counter, grabbed him by the ears and had a good start at hauling him over the counter by these handles before other customers rescued the poor man. I believe it took four of them to subdue Gramp.

Church and Grange meetings were about the only social affairs Gramp attended. He and Grammie would occasionally go to visit relatives and old friends, when she was feeling well enough. She suffered terribly from asthma and this was a great distress to all of us, because we adored Grammie Esther. This was also an area where we did not think Gramp showed a proper concern. He was accustomed to having "Et", as he called her, wait upon him hand and foot when he was in the house. I well remember one Sunday morning when she was struggling for every breath, but still helping Gramp get ready for church. She had just sunk into her chair exhausted, when he called, "Et! my hat needs brushing!" Well, that did it! My sister and I spoke as one indignant voice, "Brush your own hat! Can't you see she's sick?"

Well, the sisters did not attend church that morning. (We told each other we wouldn't have gone with him anyway.) Mother brushed the hat, and probably smoothed over our disrespectful utterances somewhat. But she did not need to punish us. Nothing could have been worse than seeing Grammie sitting there with tears rolling down her cheeks, just sadly looking at us and shaking her head. Gramp and Grammie never practiced women's lib.

Gramp had brought the Plains Farm, where my sister and I were born and grew up, when he was in his fifties, I believe. The original Old Homestead was up on a high ridge, several miles from the village. Of course, there was no village there when Gramp's grandfather received his homestead grant after the Revolutionary War. It was a typical rocky New England hill when Johnathan started to clear the fields.

Evidently the men in our family, generation after generation, had had a "thing" about rocks. By the time Johnathan, his son, Joseph, and then his son, J.B. (Gramp) and my father had finished with those fields, no rock dared show its hear to interfere with plow, harrow or mower. The rocks were wrestled out and became sturdy foundations and deep rock-walled cellars under houses, barns and outbuildings. Or they lined the walls of deep, cool wells and springs, or formed stone culverts under the road. Tons of rocks were laid deep underground for miles of drainage ditches and more tons were stout boundary walls.

When our men were not moving their own rocks, they were moving rocks for other people. For miles around they built the foundations and cellars of houses, lined wells, built fireplaces, laid stone culverts and built bridge abutments.

I never knew whether Gramp finally got tired of wrestling rocks or just wanted to be nearer town, but whatever the reason, he bought the Plains Farm. Some of his old neighbors were fond of joshing him about it. "Well, J.B., I hear you're retiring. No more hills and rocks, eh? Just smooth level sand on these plains. Easy to work in the spring, and not a darned thing to do in the fall, 'cause you sure won't raise anything but dust on this sand pile."

They didn't know J.B. as well as they thought they did. Besides the sandy plains there was a flat intervale, through which a little river flowed, and overflowed. It had thick, rich, black muck a foot deep. With horses and cart, muscle and stubborn determination, that much was removed from the flat and deposited on the sandy plains. And things grew. They wouldn't have dared not to!

In fact, Gramp must have been a pretty good farmer and manager, as they seemed to live quite comfortable and he was able to "lay by" a little through the years. He and Dad were practising woodlot management and selective cutting before most people had ever heard of it. And many of the bits that Gramp had "laid by" were dispensed, from time to time, without fanfare, to many different people, in many different sorts of emergencies. Some of these we learned about years later, from the recipients - never from Gramp.

J.B. also had a cemetery. If I ever did know, I've forgotten what sore of a disagreement he had with the Village Cemetery Association. Whatever it was, he started a cemetery of his own, on his own land, right beside the other cemetery and in competition with it. He laid out blocks of lots and sold them, laid out roads, had water piped in from the town water supply, and was his own Sexton. He opened graves, mowed the grass and tended the lots as long as he was able. Then the job descended to Dad and thence to my brothers. We kids were all brought up in the cemetery, more or less, as we helped with the mowing and trimming of lots, especially just before Memorial Day. I shall never forget crawling on my knees, trimming the grass from around the small headstones, until I had blisters on top of my blisters, and black fly and mosquito bites wherever there was room for another on my aching carcass.

Gramp was one of the youngest of a family of thirteen children. He never saw his oldest brother, who died in California at the age of 104. The strain must have been diluted somewhat by the time J.B. came along, as Gramp lived to be only 93.

He was in his seventies when I can first remember him, but in his eighties he was still moving rocks. When Dad took over most of the management of the farm, Gramp didn't exactly retire. He had a few acres about a mile from the house, on another road, which is still known as Gramp's Orchard. Part of it he had set with apple trees, and the rest was woodlot. Any rocks that got in his way in the orchard were moved. They either went farther underground and became drainage ditches or went into the magnificent retaining wall he built along the side next the road. This wall sloped from about eight feet high at the highest part of the lot, to only about two feet on the low end. That wall stands as true today as it did sixty years ago.

Mother used to worry about Gramp taking Black Billy and going up there to the Orchard to work all alone, a man in his eighties! So quite often, when we were not in school, we girls were delegated to go with him. I don't recall that we helped him. We weren't invited to. And we were not what you could Call company for him, because he promptly forgot we were there. He worked, and we played. But we found it was a good idea to keep one eye on what he was doing. One day he dropped a tree so nearly on top of us that the outside branched knocked us flat. As we scrambled out from under the assessed the damages, he noticed us and called out, "Take care there or you'll get a heist!" Whereupon we promptly deserted him and walked home in high dudgeon. We informed Mother that we were thought taking care of Gramp, that he was a darned sight safer then we were.

J.B. was a veteran of the Civil War, and it was a source of great satisfaction to him, I remember, to have his pension check arrive regularly every month. I am sure it was a very small amount then, and would seem even smaller now, but it was his, and he'd jolly well earned it!

He marched proudly in the Memorial Day parades for a good many years. Then he consented to ride to the cemetery, though he was more than likely to walk back from the cemetery to the house. Finally, the last few years, he'd just sit on the porch and watch the parade. They would halt in the road in front of the house and the band would play a number, just for him. He was one of the last of the G.A.R. veterans in the town.

In his cemetery, he laid out four lots, one for each of his children, and graded them all together into one square, forty feet to a side. When Grammie Esther dies, Gramp bought a family monument and set it right in the middle of this block. It is immense, but plain. A tall, sturdy square of grey New England granite, not too highly polished. A fitting symbol for Gramp.

Buried:
Buckfield Village Cemetery

Joseph married Drake, Esther Merrill Jordan on 01 May 1858 in Buckfield, Oxford Co., ME. Esther (daughter of Drake, Martin and Bisbee, Celia) was born on 27 Jan 1839 in Buckfield, Oxford Co., ME; died on 29 Dec 1921 in Buckfield, Oxford Co., ME; was buried in Buckfield, Oxford Co., ME. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Tombstone Photo: Buckfield, Oxford Co., ME; Buckfield Village Cemetery
• Census: 29 Aug 1850, Buckfield, Oxford Co., ME
• Census: 16 Jun 1860, Buckfield, Oxford Co., ME
• Census: 17 Jun 1870, Sumner, Oxford Co., ME
• Census: 04 Jun 1880, Sumner, Oxford Co., ME