Thursday, October 15, 2009

Tripp Road, -- Ripley, Somerset, Maine


It occurred to me to ask the question: Why is it called the “Tripp Road”?
Is the answer “because the Tripp family lived on it? If so Where? And When…..
I knew the Tripp Cemetery was located on the Tripp road – or was it?

When I went to take some pictures, I realized it was the John Goodale cemetery.


When I looked at the stones, I realized that there was only one Tripp buried there – Lucy Ann Goodale Tripp, wife of Pascal Tripp.

I guess I needed to dig deeper. The first Tripp I found in the U.S. Census Records was William Tripp.


Rev. William Tripp,
Was a son of William and Keziah (Thompson) Tripp, was born in Sanford, Maine June 17, 1794. His father was a Revolutionary War soldier. He spent his boyhood and early life in his native town and in adjoining towns. He worked on his father’s farm and learned the shoemaker’s trade, at which he worked more or less for years after he entered the ministry. At the age of sixteen he was converted. He was first a Freewill Baptist, and later became a Methodist and at the age of twenty was an exhorter (evangelist). During the War of 1812, he was a soldier, and received a pension for his service. In 1817, he bought a small farm in Bethel, and became a local preacher. Fourteen years later he sold out, and joined the Conference as a traveling Elder. In 1836, he settled in Cambridge, Maine as a local preacher, and in 1839 on a farm in Harmony. During his five-year residence there he served one year in the legislature. In 1844, he bought a farm in Ripley, Maine, where he spent the remainder of his days working and preaching as he had in other places.


The Maine Register of 1856 lists three ministers living in Ripley: William Tripp (Freewill Baptist), Simon E. Ricker and Oakes Kingman.

Rev. William Tripp died in Harmony, February 22, 1875.
He is buried in the West Ripley Cemetery.





He was twice married. By his first wife, Lucy Tebbetts, of Wolfborough, New Hampshire, whom he married January 3, 1814, he had three children. William, the oldest, at one time president of the Maine Senate, became a lawyer and removed to South Dakota. His second wife was Naamah Bartlett. She was the daughter of Enoch and Anna (Hall) Bartlett of Bethel, Maine and was born October 13, 1798. They married September 17, 1822, and had four sons and four daughters. Rev. Tripp’s sons were Enoch B., (who moved to Utah) , Robert, who was a trader in Harmony, Paschal M., who was killed in the Civil War, and Bartlett, who was born in Harmony July 4, 1842. Bartlett graduated from Colby College in 1861. He was Chief Justice of the Territory of Dakota, US minister to Austria, and was a lawyer in South Dakota.
From – The History of Bethel, Maine 1661 – 1900 by Edwin Emery
William Morrell Emery Publisher 1901 by New York Public Library.


William Tripp bn. 17 June 1794 Sanford, ME d. 22 February 1875 Harmony, ME
Buried in West Ripley Cemetery
Married 1. Lucy Tibbetts 1789 – 1822 of Wolfboro, NH

Children:
Sarah -- -- 1815 - 1910
William –1818 - 1878
Lucinda – 1820 – 1823


Married 2. Naamah Hall Bartlett on 17 Sept 1822
Naamah bn. 1798 – d. 9 Oct.1874

Children:
Enoch 1823 - 1909
Robert 8 June 1825 – 30 September 1890 buried in West Ripley Cemetery

Lucy Ann 1827 – 1910 married Richard Nutter Jr.
Paschal 29 Dec 1829 - 1863
Naamah 1834 - 1834
Susan Allen 1836 - 1910
Bartlett 15 July 1839 - 1911
Julia Francis 1843 – 1903


When I followed the William Tripp family through the census records, I realized that according to their neighbors on each side (Jones and Trafton) they didn’t live on the Tripp road. They lived on what is now Rte. 154 near Todd’s Corner.




U.S. Federal Census 1850 Ripley, Somerset, Maine 
(Remember that clicking on an image will enlarge it)

U. S. Federal Census, 1860 Ripley, Somerset, Maine

In the 1870 Census, only William and Naamah remained in their home near Todd’s Corner.
I went to my maps, to verify the location of the homestead…

In this close-up of the Todd’s corner area, you can see where Rev. Tripp’s home was…it is the third red dot from the left. (between Jones and Trafton!)


So, the William Tripp family didn’t live on the Tripp Road. I scanned the map and Census Records for more Tripps.
In Ripley Village, near Rogers Pond, I found a P.Tripp .


After checking the 1860 US Census records, I determined that this was Paschal and LucyAnn Goodale Tripp.


Paschal M. Tripp, of Ripley Maine married Lucy Ann Goodale, also of Ripley on 27 May 1857. Lucy was born 12 March 1837. They had one son, Clarence Eugene who was born 29 June 1860.
Paschal enlisted in the Union Army on 29 August 1862 at the age of 32. He was in the 20th Maine Infantry Regiment. He was promoted to Full Corporal in1863 and died on the field in the Battle of Gettysburg on 3 July 1863. He was buried on the field.

In 1870 Lucy and Clarence were living with her parents in Ripley. She was listed as working in a cotton mill, and Clarence at 9 was working on the farm.

Lucy died 3 Jan 1888.


Lucy A. Goodale Tripp & Paschal M. Tripp
Children:
Clarence Eugene – b. 29 June 1860

Here was a TRIPP living on the Tripp Road!
C. E. Tripp eventually inherited the Goodale farm. It was located on the Tripp Rd. to the North of the Goodale Cemetery.



This was a large farm. There was frontage on Rogers Pond, and it abutted his uncles’ land to the South. (but that is another story)

C. E. Tripp married Martha Ida Prescott c.1883
Martha bn. 22 Oct 1859. She was a Ripley schoolteacher. She taught in both the West Ripley, and Head-of –the Pond schools.
Clarence was a prosperous dairy farmer. He was a breeder of Holstein-Friesian dairy cows. He was a member of the Maine Dairymen’s Association, Vice President of the Sebasticook Valley Holstein Breeders Association and had a registered herd with the Holstein-Friesian Cattle Association of America.
He served the town of Ripley as Treasurer and Selectman. The Tripp road may have been named after him. It may have been named in honor of a famous Ripley Civil War casualty…..Does anyone know for sure?





In the course of my research for this piece, I found an interesting story written by William Tripp’s son, Enoch. It is taken from: A History of Utah in Four Volumes – Biographical Vol. IV by Orson Ferguson Whitney. Pub. George Q. Cannon & Sons Co 1904

An abbreviated version follows…..







Saturday, October 10, 2009

1886 Town Report

These are the scanned images of the pages in the 1886 Ripley, Maine Town Report.
CLICK on images to make them larger.




Census of Ripley,  Maine c. 1910 From:   " The East Somerset County Register"    Compiled and Published by Chatto & Tu...