Backwoods Blog

STITHAM GENEALOGY

Backwoods Blog;

in the woods and on the road…

Ralph and Laura Stitham were my grandparents on my mother’s side of the family, the fifth generation of Stithams in northern Maine. The Stitham family story begins during the Revolutionary War when James Statham and his Scottish bride embarked for St. John, New Brunswick. While crossing the Atlantic Mr. Statham tragically drowned, but his wife arrived safely. In the course of a few months Mrs. Statham gave birth to twin boys, Alexander and Andrew. As to the name change, apparently Andrew when going through his father’s papers mistook the letter “a” for an “i”. Thus, Andrew was the first “Stitham” in the family line. This winter I’ve been foraging through stacks of old papers, photographs and momentos on the Stitham side and I rediscovered a memoir written by Alonzo A. Stitham back in 1925 that I had completely forgotten about. Alonzo was the eldest son of Nathaniel Stitham and uncle of Frank who was my great grandfather. He also published the earliest record of our family genealogy in the same year.   I’ve included an abbreviated genealogy of the Stitham line as the family connections can be quite confusing (as anyone can attest who has done such research). Here is the journal entry from 2002 when I first discovered the Stitham memoir and a short excerpt from the document.

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Journal entry from March 15, 2002

Just this week I came across a copy of my great, great, great uncle’s personal memoirs; 16 typewritten pages bound with thumb spread clips and a brown cut-paper bag cover. This would be my Uncle Alonzo A. Stitham on my mother’s side, written in 1925 when he was 80 years old. His father, Nathaniel, was born in 1819, the second generation of Stithams in this neck of the woods. Here are some of his observations regarding modern technology;

In the two generations that have passed, many changes have transpired in this mundane system. As I look back to early boyhood days, it seems back to the misty past. There were no cookstoves at that time, just the old open fire place – quite a difference to the modern electric nickel-trimmed ranges of today. Back then, the big log, top stick and ponderous andirons and a chimney you could roll a barrel down from the top. But I have eaten many a good meal cooked by the old open fire place and the old dutch oven. There were no matches in those days and while it was easy to get live coals during the winter, unless the fire was well banked up in the summer there would be no fire in the morning, and in that case if there were no punk and flint to strike a fire, I had to leget back (in the original document it was spelled LEGET). I well remember that my mother was the first one in the neighborhood to obtain a cookstove. Father set it up and lighted a fire, “But, how it did smoke.” Mother said, “You had better take it back, I cannot cook with that!” But soon they got used to the dampers and thought it a wonderful invention. I remember some of the neighbors built the fire in the oven, thinking it was the place for the fire. Funny how people and the times change.

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In the woods,

Dave

March 22, 2023