New Stuff

  In Memoriam:

  Commander David R. Berry

  May 4, 1946 to March 5, 2010

Here is a link to a

video memorial to Dave.

Richards/Fuller of Chesterville, Maine  (posted Nov. 2009)

I've received some new information and photos on the family of Nettie Richards Berry, including her grandmother, Mary H. Greenleaf, and a sister of Nettie's mother, Adeline Tansy Fuller Judkins.

  Mary Hervey Greenleaf Fuller

  b. 1790

  d. 1885

  Married Sumner Fuller April 30, 1822 in Andover, MA

  Buried at Norcross Cemetery, Chesterville, Maine

  (I received a digital copy of this photo from Wayne Fuller of Calgary, Canada)

  Adeline Tansy Fuller Judkins

  b. Nov. 6, 1838

  d. Feb. 5, 1891

  Married Charles H. Judkins

  Buried at Lowell Cemetery, Chesterville, Maine

  Children of Charles H. and Adeline Judkins:

  George S., b. Nov. 18, 1873, d. Apr 11, 1908

  John S., b. Mar 29, 1875, d. May 28, 1909

Dora Norton

These items were received from Nancy Everett, typed in the 1920's. From a biography written by Dora Norton.

DORA NORTON

Dora  (Deborah) Norton, daughter of Jethro and Jane Norton

This headstone is in North Livermore, Maine.

Here is some information related to Dora Norton. I received this from Nancy Everett, a descendant of Sylvester/Ransom/Jethro/Eugene of Livermore Maine. This is an autobiography that Nancy has sent to me and said that I could share on my site.

Dora Norton Autobiography

Written in 1897

 The Nortons came to America from Wales sometime between 1622 and 1636. A land grant was made to Nicholas Norton in Weymouth Mass in 1636. He later removed to Tisbury Marthas Vinyard. One of the first four (white) men to settle there. Nortons moved to Livermore ME in 1789. Ransom Norton’s son Jethro Norton married at 20 and gave up study of the law and “devoted himself to the attainment of a living on a small farm in Livermore.” Supplemented by cabinent making and sleigh and sometimes house building. There was very little encouragement for the accumulation of a competence. Not only was the beginning very small but the young family increased rapidly. He was a great reader, a devourer of all literature that came in his way. I remember many instances of absorption in books even in the midst of company or when visiting. He also took a keen interest in political matters (Whig) Daniel Webster he knew more nearly. The question of slavery was the vital one to all and Congress was the focus on frost eager interest. When it was seen that Webster was not and could not be longer the great leader of the North there was a feeling of greet disappointment with his course, and I remember clearly the sadness and dejection my father showed when returned from hearing Webster’s defense of his course, delivered on Boston Common in 1846. I can see him even now placing on them with nicety the covers hat were to keep them from wearing out to son. He was over orderly wth a nice exactitude in all his work. My father was I suppose, rather of a nervous temperament as was shown his dislike of noise of all kinds. His dislike of great storms I have reason to remember form the fact in inheritance of it. Stories and no one told them better. My father died when I was 17. I had been away at school for some time, and in his last years I was very little at home but I well remember his distaste for the companions he found among the men with whom he was employed.

 If I did not have a love of nature born in me it was at any rate bred by the hills. Slopes, or chards and lakes of my native town. My different homes (for my father had at different times six at least removals to different places in the town) were all pleasant places as I look back on them.

 Sent to live various places: Sister Susan for a year, sent to school at three, then to Mass. “somewhat at a loss for while and finally settling in Charlestown. Sent to Boston where I lived. with a family for abut a year. At age 14.  when the proposition was first broached that I should become a teachers, she added her warm assent, to what was perhpas the only solution for the somewhat difficult question of my position in the future. From ths home I went to the West Newton State Normal School in 1845 and graduated in 1848, a year after the death of my father. I do not think I was what is called a natural teacher, having as years went on less and less love for the occupation. I was always able to get appointments whenever I made an application and continued teaching for more than 15 years. From Boston I went to Wilmington NC to assist in the Academy where my sister Julia was then teaching. This was my first experience in the south, and as it was before the war, what I saw and learned there of the state of feeling made me anticipate the great conflict between the two sections which was to follow. They could not conceal from us that we were exception in their view to the rank and file of our people. Slavery however, they defended with only the staple arguments, that it was upheld by Bible teachers that it ought to be “let alone’ to do as they pleased about it. I well remember when the attack on Charles Sumner was made by Brooks of So Carolina there was scarcely concealed satisfaction in the house-hold. Some remarks of my own showing surprise and indignation were, I have been told, remembered, not in my favor, long afterwards.

 Attack to typhoid fever had to return to home and remain in the north. I hat last gave up teaching and undertook what was then a rather pleasant and lucrative occupation, the coloring and finishing of photographs, which was my work for the years between 1861 and 1871. Worked for Alexander J Hawes of Tremont Row. ..Most eventful f my life, because I then for the fist time met the world as I may say, fact to face, saw so many  new friends, and went through with many of the experiences that decided my after course in life. I became acquainted with many famous people and that out of it all came the final result of my marriage and my residence in Calif; and that I am as much in doubt as most people as to whether my own good judgment of the workings of a higher power brought it about that I should be here and yet often desire to be back again in my New England home. As I have no children or connection to whom a history of the kind would of interest, I shall omit all the brief statement of facts. We had our home in San Francisco for the most of the 15 years of our life together and went for our vacations to a little mountain ranch which was home for the first two years after our marriage. There my husband died during one of his vacations. Thereafter the place coming not available as a home, I sold it have since made my home in SF. In 1892, I built a house on Russian Hill which I now occupy.

 Letter written in June 22 1856

 We went to an exhibition the other evening to hear some declamation by some of the boys of our rival schools the first prize was awarded to a boy who spoke on extract from a pro-slavery speech and though he did admirably should have been soundly punished for his bad taste.

 Edwin Augustus Norton (1827-1911) Brother of Dora

While in the employ of Singer Sewing co came to Ca and bought a small farm in Forestville. By 1854 nearly escaped murder outside Chicago. Set on by dog and shot it.

 George Andrew Norton (1838-1908) Brother of Dora

At the end of the CW he went to Chicago and engaged in the sewing machine business when he returned to CA and opened the businesses SF At last in the 1877 the desire for farm life returned and he took a ranch first in San Luis Obispo and afterward in Santa Barbara. When the boom came 1885 he sold he property for a good advanced and returned SF,  In 188 be bought another ranch in Contra Costa Co with the idea realizing a profit form the opening up a railroad through his property. The rr was slow in coming he at last settle in Lorin Ca, a part of the town of Berkeley. At present, Jan 1897, he exchanged a part of the Contra Costa ranch and the house in Berkeley for a ranch near San José. Morgan Hill. He filled many offices of trust and always to the entire satisfaction of everyone. Died 1906 of injuries sustained in the war.

Also:

Dora Norton

 Dora Williams (1829-1915)

 Dora wed Virgil Williams in Boston in 1871 and came with him to San Francisco in that year. She studied under her husband at the School of Design and became a competent painter.  The local papers gave her watercolors favorable reviews in 1882. Dora (or Deborah as she was also called) was a close friend of Fannie and Robert Louis Stevenson.

 Deborah Norton Williams career in art was meteoric, hitting her peak, possibly before the Midwinter Fair when she entered her watercolor, Poppies. Her paintings secured high praise at the first exhibition of women's paintings in 1885. As the wife of Virgil Williams, the director of the School of Design, she was as much the mistress of the School of Design as she was a talented watercolorist. Isobel Osbourne Field, who took lessons at the School of Design, described Williams:

 "...a slim, straight-backed, decisive Yankee woman who prided herself on a frankness that was sometimes rather appalling. She wore heavy silks and velvets, unbecoming hats, fairly rattled with necklaces and bangles, and carried, fastened to her belt, an assortment of silver articles, mesh purse, pencil- case, knife, button-hook that dangled on the ends of little chains. I thought they were lovely. She and my mother became friends at once and a year later [1880], when my mother married Louis Stevenson, Dora and Virgil Williams were the only witnesses."

 Dora Williams painted watercolors, using vibrant colors with a technique that was impressionistic. After the Midwinter Fair entry, history records little about Dora Williams. It seems possible that with the untimely death of her husband in 1886, her role at the School of Design changed quickly and that might have affected her painting. After the 1906 quake, Dora Williams moved to Berkeley and lived out her days.

 Robert Louis Stevenson

 After Fanny’s divorce the lovers intended to postpone their marriage for a decent interval, but Stevenson made friends even in his solitude. In Portsmouth Square children gathered around him while he told them stories. Fanny came from Oakland when she could, and RLS saw her at the homes of artist friends like Dora and Virgil Williams, who arranged for Stevenson to use the library of the prestigious Bohemian Club.

 Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny Osbourne, both financially precarious when they started their life together in San Francisco, needed a good friend. Dora Williams filled a special place of literary history as the important friend of these two struggling artists. The Williams', sensitive to the needs of the newlyweds, offered their ranch in Mt. Helena to the Stevensons for their honeymoon. Inspired by that visit, Stevenson wrote Silverado Squatters and dedicated the piece to his good friends, Dora and Virgil Williams.

  Polk-Williams House on Russian Hill

 One of the most notable commissions executed by Polk & Polk in San Francisco, and a landmark on the Summit of Russian Hill to this day, is the Polk-Williams House at 1013-19 Vallejo Street.

 The western half of the house at 1019 was built for Mrs. Virgil Williams. Notice the high half moon studio window. Dora Norton Williams was an accomplished painter and friend of Robert Louis Stevenson and his wife Fanny. Fanny Stevenson lived here with Dora Williams for a time after Stevenson's death. Williams was the widow of painter and teacher Virgil Williams. Virgil Williams was a co-founder of the Bohemian Club and a founding director of the School of Design, now the San Francisco Art Institute.

The large shingled house was built as a duplex, with the eastern 20 feet of frontage on Vallejo Street belonging to the Polks and the western 40 feet belonging to Dora Williams. The Polk-Williams house was ingeniously placed on the steep rocky site to take advantage of both the sun and the dramatic views of downtown San Francisco. While the Vallejo Street elevation was only two stories in height, the steep grade to the rear meant that the back of the house was nearly six stories in height, with a profusion of balconies taking advantage of the dramatic site. When the house was completed in 1893, Willis Polk had a plaque made for the front door with an inscription that read: “Was Kummerts Den Mond das de Hunde Bellen,” which translated from German means, “What does the moon care that the hound howls below?”

In 1915, Laura Ingalls Wilder ("Little House on the Prairie") came to San Francisco for the Pan-Pacific Exposition. She stayed at 1019 Vallejo with her daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, a feature writer for the Sam Francisco Bulletin. From here, Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote the letters that were later published as "West from Home".

 Virgil Williams

 Virgil Williams (1830-1886) was born and raised in Massachusetts and developed his talents in Italy but it was in far off California that he flowered as an artist and teacher. He was a colleague of Albert Bierstadt, Thomas Hill, William Keith and other artists then active in defining a western art. Also active in San Francisco civic developments, Williams was an early president of the newly formed Bohemian Club and a life member of the San Francisco Art Association which opened the California School of Design. Williams was its first director, a position he filled with great results and recognition for the school and its students, until death took him in 1886. Today, his paintings are in the collections of major California museums and private collectors and there is spirited competition whenever one of his paintings come on the market.

This is the post that I found on "genforum" that led to this connection. Please contact Nancy through the forum link below if you have information that might help her research ancestors and living relatives.:

I am seeking particular descendents of the Nicholas Norton line from Martha's Vineyard. His four times great grandson Ransom Norton moved to Livermore NE from the Vineyard in 1791 with his bride Sussana Mayhew. His son Jethro moved to Boston about 1844 with his family, including son Eugene L. Norton who was Navy Agent during the Civil War, mayor of Charlestown, and a Mass. state senator. I am seeking relatives of Eugene Norton. I am researching the life story of Eugene's sister Dora, who moved to San Francisco in 1871. Dora wrote a detailed account of her fanily, which is in my possession.

I am descended from this same line, as my grandmother, Luisa, was a Norton. Eugene Norton was her grandfather.

http://genforum.genealogy.com/norton/messages/4853.html

Nortons buried at North Livermore.

Rev. Ransom and Susannah Mayhew Norton

Sad news.

Louise Anna Garland Berry
LOUISE ANNA GARLAND BERRY, 89 School Teacher DAVENPORT - Louise Anna Garland Berry, 89, beloved wife and mother, died at Crossroads Health Care Center, Davenport, Wed. (Jan. 16, 2008) of cardiac and respiratory arrest. Louise leaves her husband, Rockwood N. Berry; daughter Katherine Oestreich and her husband Curt Oestreich of Leesburg, FL; son David Berry and his wife Pamela Berry of Waterford, CT; daughter Cynthia Berry of Haines City; 5 grandchildren and 8 great grandchildren; and many nieces and nephews. Louise was born in Portland Maine, daughter of Morton and Blanche Garland. Graduated from Dixfield High School and Gorham Normal School, and taught school in N. Livermore and Oakland, ME. She earned a B.S. degree in Elementary Education from Central CT. State University at New Britain, and taught school in Suffield CT for almost 13 years. Louise married Rockwood in 1942 at her parent's home in Rumford, Maine. She lived in N. Livermore, Maine and was active in the Baptist church and the Eastern Star Chapter in Livermore Falls. The Berry family moved to Suffield, CT. She was active in the Second Baptist Church. Louise and Rockwood retired to Haines City, and became members of the First Christian Church. Louise joined the church choir, taught Sunday school, and served as an Elder. She was a member of the Volunteer Auxiliary Group at Heart of Florida Hospital and she volunteered over 4,000 hours. In 2007, Louise and Rockwood celebrated their 65th wedding anniversary. Louise is preceded in death by son Richard Berry, and sisters Dorothy Tarquinio Meigs and Anne Wood. A memorial service will be held on Monday, Jan. 21 at 11:00 a.m. at the First Christian Church, 705 South 14th St., Haines City, followed by inurnment of her ashes at the church columbarium. In lieu of flowers, donations in Louise's memory may be made to the First Christian Church, 705 S. 14th St, Haines City, FL 33844. Published in the Ledger on 1/18/2008.

12/16/07, Livermore: Diane with Cassie

12/10/2007

This first "new" item is from Jeannie Pepper, a Norton descendant of the Jonesport, Maine line, now living in Nevada.