The Slovak Yankee

Lucy Yeaton 1816-1870

Daughter of John and Temperance (Cathcart) Yeaton.

New Sharon Yeatons in 1800

John Yeaton appears high in the list as arriving in New Sharon in 1798 and born in Maine.  His brother Philip is at the bottom of the list with no such identifications.  If you think that the pre-1850 U.S. censuses are all boring--you'll see this one is anything but.

John H. Yeaton c. 1812-1869

Son of John and Temperance (Cathcart) Yeaton.  He and his siblings and mother are all in the same house in the 1850 and 1860 U.S. censuses in New Sharon.

The Yeaton Family

It's strange how certain things in your ancestry become much, much bigger projects.  My first exposure to the Yeaton family was tangential.  My ancestor James Pinkham had married Elizabeth Hopley, the grandmother of Hopley Yeaton and his brothers.  Then I broke through on my great-great-grandmother Olive Ann (Hurd) Pinkham's Hurds: I knew her father was Benjamin Wingate Hurd, then I discovered his father was Frederick Heard whose parents were Jonathan Heard and Sarah Yeaton.  Suddenly the Yeatons were more than tangential.  Sarah Yeaton is the only one of that name to marry in Rochester, N.H.  As I started research, I realized that no one had done anything on this family at all.  And it became apparent to find the parents of my Sarah (Yeaton) Heard, I would need to reassemble the entire Yeaton family from the beginning  So I did.  Alas, my Sarah's parents never appear with any certain.  There's a 50/50 tie on who it could be.

Here's what I know about his couple from an article I wrote on the Heard family:

JONATHAN HEARD, b. about 1758, d. after 13 April 1823 when his wife Sarah released dower and called herself “the wife of the of the within stated Jonathan Heard”[1]; m. in Rochester 9 May 1782[2] SARAH YEATON, b. about 1760, d. after 13 April 1823, the probable daughter of Samuel³ (John² Richard¹) and Patience (_____) Yeaton.[3] 

               Jonathan received land from his father on 7 April 1804 as noted above. Listed in 1790 Census in Rochester next door to Reuben Heard; with a family of one boy under 16 and three women.[4] Children: (a) Relief Heard, b. about 1783 and d. in South Newmarket on 11 November 1852[5] aged 70; (b) Frederick Heard, b. about 1787, d. in Great Falls (Somersworth) on 31 August 1846, aged 58;[6] (c) probably Jane Heard who m. in Rochester on 15 April 1810[7] Elijah H. Varney; and (d) another daughter who is unidentified.

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[1] Strafford County Deeds, 59:148.

[2] “Rochester Marriages,” in New Hampshire Genealogical Record, 4:151.

[3] Martin E. Hollick, “A Chronological Framework for the Yeaton Family of Newcastle, N.H., New Hampshire Genealogical Record, 21[2004]:65-76.

[4] Heads of Families at the First Census of the United States Taken in the Year 1790, New Hampshire (Baltimore, Maryland: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1992), 96, hereafter, 1790 New Hampshire Census.

[5] Exeter News-Letter, Vol. XXII (No. 34) Nov 29, 1852, from Scott Lee Chipman, New England Vital Records from the Exeter News-Letter 1847-1852 (Camden, Maine: Picton Press, 1994), 234.

[6] Exeter News-Letter, issue of 31 Aug. 1846 in New England Vital Records 1841-1846, 186.

[7] History of Rochester, II:617.

Tombstone Tuesday: John Yeaton 1771-1839 and wife Temperance (Cathcart)

On my last trip to Maine, after a lifetime of being in Skowhegan and Norridgewock, I went a little further west on Route 2 to New Sharon (which I been through a gazillion times).  There in the main cemetery are several Yeatons that have perplexed me and many others.  John is the probable son of Philip^4-3 John² Richard¹ and Mary (Harvey) Yeaton.  I'll be posting all the New Sharon Yeaton graves in the next few weeks.