William Edwards Moves to Otisfield

A little Edwards family history story for Tuesday. It was 213 years ago today that my ancestors moved to Maine. My great-grandfather’s great-grandfather, William Edwards, made the trek from Gilmanton, New Hampshire to Otisfield arriving on February 16, 1797.

Luckily the story was recorded by one of his descendants and published in 1916. Llewellyn Nathaniel Edwards, the gentleman who was the engineer on the Cribstone Bridge between Bailey Island and Orr’s Island in Harpswell wrote A Genealogical Record of the Descendants of John Edwards from which we borrow the following:

“William arrived in Otisfield, Me., Feb. 16, 1797. On the way from Gilmanton, he stopped in Gorham, Me., taking dinner with his brother, Richard. His son Simeon had previously come to Gorham and stayed with his uncle until the arrival of his father, when he accompanied him to Otisfield. The family and all household possessions were moved on a single ox sled. Over the stakes of the sled bed quilts were drawn to protect his wife and children and to furnish them shelter at night. The last eight miles of the journey was through the virgin forest, over trackless snow, “blazed” trees being the only guidance.

“It had been agreed between William and another party, probably the Proprietors of Otisfield that “they would have his house built by Feb. 15th.” As only the walls, however, were up, the family was obliged to pass the first night in a house which had the starry vault of a February sky as a roof.” (pg 220)

What kills me, I mean, besides the “not having a roof”, is that the last eight miles was forest. And that it was February.

Oh yeah, another thing. William’s wife Lydia (Baker) Edwards was pregnant, I’d say about six months so. She gave birth to baby Ephraham on May 17, 1797.

Ephraham ended up having a baby boy named … Joshua Edwards. He died in New Orleans during the Civil War, but that’s another story for another day.