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| The Theodore Marston house used to adjacent and south to Marston Cemetery on Fogg Road. He lived very near the Mt. Vernon / Readfield town line and had many connections to people in Readfield. |
Theodore Marston is
listed on the 1790 US Census in Washington (Mt. Vernon) as head of household
with one son, two daughters and his wife. His closest Mt. Vernon neighbors were
Joseph Hill and his brother-in-law Joses Ladd. Joanna’s uncle Samuel Dudley
settled nearby in Readfield about the same time as did her cousin, Captain Dudley Haines (Nickerson Hill Road).
Marston’s house
(now gone) was located near and south of Jacobs (Marston) Cemetery on the Fogg
Road just over the Mt. Vernon / Readfield town line. His property boasted a
spring that produced more than enough water for one farm so when Dudley Fogg
moved into the “neighborhood” in 1807 the two men struck up an agreement that
water rights would be shared equally between the two farms. The water was
gravity fed to the Fogg farmhouse and continued for nearly two centuries until
the Fogg farm was sold out of the Fogg family in 1989. The Marston home
remained in their family for three generations – from Theodore it went to his
son Daniel who signed it over to his son James R. Marston in 1847. James sold
it to Edwin L. Johnson (my g-g-grandfather) in 1871[ii]. The house is gone now – torn down sometime in the 1980’s
– but I was able to tour it with the Readfield Bicentennial Walkers Group
before it became unsafe to enter. It was a cape that sat perpendicular to the
road, on the right (northbound) and just south of the old Jacobs Cemetery. There
were still very old features intact such as the fireplaces, hardware and Dutch
oven.
Theodore Marston was
known to be a very generous and kindly man who, during "1816 and froze to
death" when food was very scarce, gave his corn to the poor, on credit,
before he would take money from those who could afford to buy it elsewhere. According
to a family history online: “Theodore was
described as "a thrifty farmer, pious, honest and eccentric. He always
asked one price for his produce, whether it was higher or lower in the market.
When seed was scarce he trusted the poor, but would not sell to the rich for
money. He was a soldier in the Revolutionary army, and taken prisoner"[iii]. Marston died in Mt. Vernon in 1830 and
his wife in 1835. Both are buried in the Marston Cemetery as are several of
their family members.
[ii]
Kennebec County Registry of Deeds: Book 166 Page 213 and Book 277 Page 301
[iii]
http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~ladd/gedcoms/nathaniel_2/pafn09.htm#286
accessed 11/15/2012
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