otis harden/harding

Since I just wrote about one set of my fourth great-grandparents, I thought I would look at another couple of that generation. In the last post I focused on my third great grandfather, David Turner Stoddard's, parents. Now I will focus on David's wife, Maria Harding's, parents - Otis Harding and Margaret Blackington.


Just as with David's parents, I also know Maria's parents' names from her death record in 1908 in Norwell, MA. This record includes her mother's maiden name of Blackington, and includes her parent's place of birth. Maria's father, Otis Harding, was born in Abington, MA; and her mother, Margaret Blackington, was born in Maine, with no town listed. Maria was also born in Maine, again no town listed.

So from this record, it seems that Otis was born in Abington, MA and at some point he moved to Maine and met Margaret Blackington and started a family. I am guessing they were married in Maine, as their daughter Maria was born in Maine. I did look for a marriage record in both Massachusetts and Maine, but was unable to find it in either state. Eventually, I know his daughter Maria made her way back to Massachusetts, as she married and lived most of her live with David Stoddard in Scituate, MA. I am not sure at this point if her parents, Otis and Margaret, stayed in Maine or also came back to Massachusetts.

Since I am more familiar with Massachusetts records, and Otis was born in Abington, MA; I figured I would start looking into Otis Harding's family first. I thought the first step would be to narrow down his birth date by finding him in the censuses. Maria was born in Dec of 1826 according to the 1900 census; which complies with her death record stating she was 81 years old at the time of her death in 1908. So, Otis and Margaret should be in the Federal Census for 1820 or 1830 in Maine.

I found Otis Harding in Thomaston, Maine in the 1830 census - and with a little more work, also found him in the 1820 census in Thomaston, Maine (ancestry has him indexed as ceks harding). Since I have not found any other Otis Harding in the census for Maine, I am going to assume this is our Otis. I will have to find more evidence later that supports Otis and Margaret were living in Thomaston. For now, I am going to use these dates to narrow down Otis' birth date to help locate his parents. (These were the only two censuses I was able to find Otis in, in either MA or NH)

In the 1820 census, I am not sure which age range Otis would be in. I would guess he would be the younger of the two categories since his wife is; and it seems they are just starting a family with only one daughter. If Otis is between the ages of 16-25, he would have been born between 1795-1804; if he was between the ages of 26-44, he would have been born between 1776-1794. (children's names from History of Thomaston book)

Males 16-25:1(?) Males 26-44:1(?) Females Under 10:1(eleanor) Females 16-25:1(margaret)

 Let's look at his household in the 1830 census.

Males 30-39:1(otis) Females Under 5:1(maria) Females 5-9:2(matilda) Females 10-14:1(harriet) Females 30-39:1(margaret)

Since there is only one male in this household, we know Otis is between the ages of 30-39, which makes him born between 1791-1800. With this date range, I went to the Abington Vital Records book to see if an Otis was born between these dates. There was no Otis Harding, but under Harden, I did find...


It looks like my Otis could be the son of Jacob and Mehitable Harden, born November 11, 1789.  This date does not fall within the 1791-1800 range; but, if he was born on this date, it would make Otis 40 years old on the enumeration date of June 1, 1830. (see note 1)  Also, the age category according to the ancestry.com 1830 census information page is actually 30-40 years old (not 30-39), which would make this Otis born in Abington in 1789 fit into the Thomaston, Maine 1830 household. (see note 2)

I wanted to find more of a connection for Otis Harding to Jacob and Mehitable Harden; so I checked to see if his possible father, Jacob Harden, had a probate record.  I did find a Jacob Harden that has an 1805 probate, from Abington, MA. (Plymouth Probate 9138)  In these probate files for Jacob, his wife Mehitable is mentioned, along with the administrator, Jacob Harden; a possible son.  There is no mention at all of any children though, probably because Jacob's estate was insolvent, owing more in debts than he had in assets.  Unfortunately this did not provide me with the connection I was looking for.

I also searched through the Plymouth County Deeds for Jacob and Otis Hardens/Harding in the Abington area.  There are no deeds for Otis; which supports the fact that Otis, the son of Jacob, removes from the area.  Also, the deeds for Otis' father Jacob, do not mention Otis.  This is not surprising as Jacob dies in 1804, when Otis would only be 15 years old; too young to be given or buying land from his father.  Although this lack of information makes sense, it still does not show a connection to my Otis in Thomaston, ME.

I next turned my attention to finding Otis Harding in some Maine genealogy history books.  He is mentioned in the following book, available on google books, History of Thomaston, Rockland, and South Thomaston, Maine...


This book gives a death date for Otis of August 23, 1834.  This date does make sense, since the last census I was able to locate Otis was the 1830 census.  I am not sure where this date from this book was obtained, maybe the town clerk has records.  There is another book published in 2002, Vital Records of Thomaston, Maine, that is not online.  Maybe when I finally review this book, it may show a source for Otis' death date.

The History of Thomaston book above does provide more information on Otis' family that I can research further.  It contains the names of Otis' daughters, and mentions they remove to Massachusetts.  This supports the information I have on his daughter, Maria Harding, my third great-grandmother, who marries and has a family in Scituate, MA.  Now that I have more children's names, I searched through the Massachusetts Town Records on ancestry and found a bit more evidence to connect Otis Harding to the town of Thomaston in Maine.  Two of the daughter's death records, Eleanor and Harriet, state their mother, Margaret Blackington, was born in Thomaston, Maine, and their father Otis was born in Abington, MA.

I also found another connection of this Harden family in Abington to Thomaston, ME.  After researching the other children of Jacob and Mehitable Harden, I found that another child of theirs also went to Thomaston, Maine.  This would be Otis' sister, Polly, who marries Luther Hearsey in Abington in 1797.  Polly and Luther are still living in Abington in 1800, but by the 1810 census, they are in Thomaston, ME.  So, Otis' sister was the first to leave Abington and head to Maine. (see note 3)  Otis would leave Abington soon after, residing in Thomaston by 1819 when his first daughter was born there.  

The last piece of information I searched for was a death record for Otis Harding.  As mentioned above, The History of Thomaston book has his death date of 1834.  I am not sure if Otis moved back to Massachusetts before his death, so I tried both states when searching for his death.  I checked the following databases:

• index for Maine, Deaths and Burials, 1841-1910 on familysearch - nothing
• Maine, State Archive Collection, 1718-1957 on familysearch, but for Thomaston, ME, they only have World War I records, which is much too late for Otis.  
• Maine, Vital Records, 1670-1907, on familysearch.  This database is not fully indexed yet, so I browsed through both Harding and Harden as surname - nothing
• Since I know that his daughter Maria eventually made it back to MA, I also checked for Otis' death in MA using the Massachusetts, Town and Vital Records, 1620-1988 on ancestry.com and again found nothing.
• Massachusetts, Plymouth County, Probate Records 1633-1967, familysearch - if he returned to Abington area - nothing
• Maine, County Probate Records, 1760-1979, familysearch - looked in Lincoln county  for years surrounding 1834-1840 - found nothing
• Maine, Knox County Cemetery Records, familysearch - looked in Thomaston Village Cemetery index - found nothing

Unfortunately; none of these databases had any information on Otis Harding's death.  I also emailed the town clerk of Thomaston, ME, to see if they had records that far back.  I am still waiting to hear from them.

I am fairly confident that I have found the correct family for Otis, with his parents as Jacob and Mehitable Harden in Abington, MA.  Now I have more people to research to hopefully take the family back another generation.  First; though, I will look into Otis' wife, Margaret Blackington's, family for my next post.

notes:

1. According to the information about the 1830 census from ancestry.com, "The official enumeration day of the 1830 census was 1 June 1830. All questions asked were supposed to refer to that date." On June 1 1830, Otis Harden, born in Abington would have been 40 years old. 
2. Also from the ancestry.com information, "Enumerators of the 1830 census were asked to include the following categories in the census: name of head of household; number of free white males and females in age categories: 0 to 5, 5 to 10, 10 to 15, 15 to 20, 20 to 30, 30 to 40, 40 to 50, 50 to 60, 60 to 70, 70 to 80, 80 to 90, 90 to 100, over 100". So Otis would have fallen into the 30-40 category, even though ancestry has that category indexed as 30-39.
3. The History of Thomaston books states that Polly and her husband both die before 1830, Polly in 1825, Luther in 1828 - they are not in the 1830 census.  The 1820 census indicates they left behind many children.  So far among the children I have found, their oldest was 31 and their youngest either 11 years old, or maybe even as young as 9 years old when their father died in 1828.  I will have to try to track them in the 1830 census - maybe they are living with their older siblings.  Thomaston VR book will be of great help to figure this family out.