Saturday, June 5, 2010

c. 1910 postcard of idyllic Main Street, Red Beach, Maine



Postcard of Main Street, Red Beach, Maine, sometime around 1910, as that is the date of the cancellation mark on reverse.  


Red Beach is a village in Calais, Maine, and is near St. Croix Island, where Samuel de Champlain and company started a settlement in 1604, later abandoning it after a disastrously cold and difficult winter.  It's possible that the tip of St. Croix Island is visible in the background, though I'm not sure.


The reverse shows a message from MPR to Miss Addie Eales, Vanceboro, Maine.  




Note:  A kind reader has forwarded photographs of Addie and some of her relatives, below.


Jo and Addie Eales, c1905


Research shows that Addie was born in 1895, the daughter of George W. and Laura A. (Fisher) Eales of Vanceboro, Maine, a town on the New Brunswick, Canada border.  


 George W. Eales, Jr., Addie's father


Addie's parents, Laura A. (Fisher) and George W. Eales


Addie Eales' paternal grandparents were George W. and Mary Elizabeth (Fleming) Eales, born in England and St. Andrews, New Brunswick respectively. 


George had served in the British Navy aboard HMS Victory; after his naval career ended, he emigrated to New Brunswick and lived at St. James Parish in Charlotte County.


Back row: George W. Eales Sr.; granddaughter Muriel (daughter of George Eales, Jr. and wife Laura (Fisher) Eales, and thus a sister of Addie (Eales) Beaton); Mary, wife of George W. Eales, Sr.


The following snippet indicates that George had served under Lord Nelson in the English navy; if he was referring to Lord Horatio Nelson, however, he died before George was born.




The following obituary of George W. Eales, Sr., makes the distinction, that George had served on the HMS Victory, where Nelson had earlier died.


Addie's maternal grandparents were Joseph and Rebecca (Young) Fisher.  I believe that Joseph was Joseph Hutchings Fisher, born in 1825 at Steuben, Maine, the son of Pliny Gould Fisher and wife Elizabeth (Parker) Fisher, but I'd appreciate comments from readers with knowledge of the Fisher family.


According to the Maine Online Marriage Database, Addie Eales was living in Vanceboro, when she married James Beaton of Megantic, Quebec, on 3 Oct 1917.




In the 1901 Census of Canada at Lake Megantic I found a James Beaton, born 21 Jun 1885, the son of Robert and Helene Beaton, hopefully the correct James Beaton.  Helene also appears in the Censuses as Nellie.  


It's possible that she was Nellie Ham, as there's a Drouin record for the birth of a Robert James Jerry Beaton, son of Robert James Beaton and Nellie Ham, 20 Jun 1885, in the records for 1885 Church of England, Bury and Lingwick, Sherbrooke, Quebec.  This is one day off from other records I found, which put James' birth at 21 June 1885.


James and Addie were settled in Brownville, Piscataquis County, Maine, by the 1920 Census, with a son.  James listed his occupation as Engineer with the Railroad.  By the 1930 Census, they had two more children.  Addie died in Brownville in 1972.


Just speculating, but it's possible that Addie met James while he was working for the railroad, as Vanceboro and Brownville are railroad towns; Megantic, Quebec is another.   


For more information (and more photographs of the Eales family), see the page of Addie Eales and James Beaton at the Maine and Maritime Canada Genealogy network.


Vanceboro, Maine, on the Maine/New Brunswick border:



View Larger Map



Brownville, Maine, in Piscataquis County:



View Larger Map



Thanks for stopping by!



9 comments:

  1. Interesting! Addie Eales was my grandmother Josephine's sister, I have some early 1900's photos of them.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Interesting! If you are willing to share, I'd love to edit the post to include your photographs of Addie and your grandmother and display them also on Addie and James' page at the Maine Maritime Canada Genealogy network.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hi, I posted some Eales family pics on picasa, the descriptions are in the file names (visible when you right click and save as). Regards

    https://picasaweb.google.com/106418534263792013946/Misc#

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thanks so much for sharing these wonderful photographs! I did some more research into this family, as indicated in changes above. Loved the St. Andrews connection.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Im a total stranger, just checking out places in maine I would like to visit, red beach caught my attention, lived here most of my life never heard of it. Enjoyed the photos, love them its always fun to learn a little about a place before you go. Prob wont help much but Thank you for taking the time to do this, its a labor of love and it is appreciated! keep up the good work, history is a wonderfull thing!
    A MAINER 4 EVAH!!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Thank you for your kind words. Red Beach is a definite must see, for its history, geology and scenery. It's part of the city of Calais, which is why you may not have heard of it. There's a new book coming out about St. Croix Island (settled by Sieur de Mons, Samuel de Champlain & company in 1604 but abandoned a year later), just off Red Beach, and it's my understanding that the unique geology of the area will be a part of it.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I have an old framed portrait of someone who looks a lot like James Eales. My family is Fenderson from Calais and one of my great-grandfathers married a Fleming who I think was from New Brunswick, I'll have to take a second look at that portrait tomorrow.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Do we by chance have an address where they lived in Brownsville?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The 1940 Census doesn't mention a street or road, probably because Brownville was so small. https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QS7-L9M1-RS42?i=17&personaUrl=%2Fark%3A%2F61903%2F1%3A1%3AKMM5-GVM

      Delete