Individual Details
Abial Lovejoy
(12 Aug 1826 - 15 Apr 1904)
From Rena Lynn Moore's articles-
"Abial Lovejoy was a man of great strength who had been a "great amateur wrestler" in his youth. A dislocated elbow ended that career and also prevented his being accepted into the Army during the Civil War, a lifelong disappointment.
In 1875 Abial, Harriet and their three boys left the security of home and set out to join the Warrens (Harriet's brother) in California . They traveled across the country by rail in a 50 car immigrant train. When the train passed through Iowa they were joined by another migrating family, Steve and Princetta Elder with their children, seven year old Charles and four year old Bertha. That was the beginning of a lifetime friendship between the two families. Upon reaching California, the two families separated. The Elders went to Sacramento, and the Lovejoys went to Gualala where they lived for the next few years operating Uncle Frank Warren's Salt Point Hotel.
The Lovejoys had been in touch with other members of their family who had moved West and the decision was made to move on in the search for a permanent home site. So once again the family packed everything they owned and traveled by wagon train to the Sacramento Valley where they visited briefly with their friends the Elders, who were in the process of packing their own move to the coast. There was plenty of work, Steve Elder told the Lovejoys, at the new mill which had opened at Wages Creek below Westport. But the Lovejoys continued their journey to the small farming community in western Montana where their relatives had homesteaded.
Their oldest sons, Loriston and Charles, stayed for only one winter. Harriet and Abial stuck it out for two more years, but the severe cold of those Montana winters proved too much for them and in the spring of 1885 they packed up again and headed for Wages Creek to rejoin their oldest sons and the Elder family. There Abial became the head sawyer at the newly built mill at DeHaven.
And then the Lovejoys met a man named Cole who had homesteaded 160 acres near Steve and Princetta Elder and set up a small mill for making shakes. The Elders had homesteaded 160 acres along the South Fork of the Eel River, several miles inland from the Wages Creek Mill and the mill at DeHaven. The Elder men continued to work the coast while the women stayed on the homestead to protect it from claim jumpers. Abial and his sons helped Cole build a small house near where Fox Creek emptied into the South Fork and, at Cole's insistence, the family moved in. Harriet Lovejoy was delighted to be so close to her friend, Princetta, and was happy to make the move. In 1891, Cole decided to move on and turned over his property to the Lovejoys. At the same time, George Lovejoy laid claim to the 160 acres adjoining the Cole property.
In 1892, when Lori married Lou Lockhart they moved into the Lovejoy home. Harriet now had another woman in the house to help her with the chores, including care of the huge garden and the accumulating numbers of farm animals. The original house was enlarged, and a new barn and outbuildings built to accommodate the growing family. Uncle Warren's wife had died in Gualala and he asked the Lovejoys to take in his youngest son Fred, then 12 years old. Two years later George married Annie Lockhart and they, too moved into the family complex at the foot of Fox Creek.
By this time, a road had gone in along the deeply ravined tumbling creek leading from the Elder's place back to the Lovejoys, the creek now known as Elder Creek. The Lovejoys built the road with teams to pull logs and with homemade scrapers and plows fashioned by George. Bridges were built of huge timbers felled on the land and dragged into place with stringers carried across by hand and then fastened to the team for pulling.
When Fred's father, Uncle Warren, retired he came to live with the Lovejoys. Abial and Harriet were getting along in years and Harriet was being slowly crippled by arthritis, so every extra hand around the place was welcome. Various assorted cousins, uncles and aunts were in and out in an almost constant stream of family togetherness. Wilderness Lodge was the name finally given to the ever enlarging complex of buildings where Grandpa and Grandma Lovejoy lived and which made up the home of Lori and Lou.
Abial and Harriet and the Elders were dear friends and frequently went on horseback rides and overnight camping trips by themselves. One of their favorite places to go was Soda Springs, where the berry picking was especially good. Once they found an old board down in the creek which they carried up to camp and placed over a log so they could use it as a teeter totter. This was when all four were well along in years.
It was an unhappy time for everyone when Grandma Lovejoy could no longer go along on these joyous excursions, as she became increasingly crippled by arthritis. The last few years of her life she was unable to walk and spent her days in a rocking chair, under the watchful eye of the grandchildren. Ceil Lovejoy remembers helping Grandma dress in the mornings, bringing a pan of warm water from the stove for her to wash in, and gently combing her hair. The rocking chair would be dragged from room to room, but Grandma's favorite place to be was in the kitchen. The chair would be pulled to the kitchen table, and while the children washed the dishes, Grandma would dry and stack them as she talked about her girlhood in Maine.
With Grandma unable to help with the heavier chores around the house, Grandpa took over, not only helping with the work in the family's small mill but also with the laundry, cooking and gardening. Annie, George and their children spent as much time as they could at Lori's after the old people could no longer move around as they once had. There are memories of Grandpa peeling and coring apples to hand around, or putting pieces of salmon on a stick to toast in the fireplace, followed by big pans of popping corn. Grandma Lovejoy taught the girls to sew, and Ceil and Bessie were making quilt blocks by the time they were seven years old, sewing one careful stitch at a time.
When Grandpa Lovejoy died of a heart attack in 1903 while making shakes in the mill, Grandma never recovered from her grief and followed him two years later. Their deaths left a great void in the two families. "I had been my Grandpa's shadow from the day I was born," Ceil Lovejoy reflects. "I would crawl into his lap every evening to go to sleep and then he'd carry me off to bed. And, the last two years of Grandma's life, I was seldom far from her side."
(From an interview with Mark Walker in 1987)
"...Well, Abial [pronounced 'A-bile', with a long i] from their talk and everything, I thought might be English, didn't sound Scotch, but people come from Maine, their talk, their sounds is not like Scotch, so I might be mixed up.
I remember when I was about five years old, they had a fourth of July celebration at the homestead. Everybody from around there came. I told you I guess, they had a little creek that used to run down there. All the men would go down there and they had a keg of beer down there. I was about five years old I guess. Had a burlap sack over the top of it, poured water over it to keep it cool, you know. And _ was serving beer around there. _ Glasses, cups.... Oh ah a dozen men around there. There was Fred Warren, Mitchell, Lovejoy, Lori, ...
The women were up, as I always tell it, up in the kitchen, 50 to 60 feet up the creek. There was a big window where you could look out, look right down there, at all the men down there. Grandma Lovejoy was in the kitchen. All the women were in the kitchen getting dinner ready. While they were doing all the work the men were down there drinking beer! You don't have to tell that, you know that without being told!
So, someone said, "Ah, Mr. Lovejoy, don't cha want another beer here?" You know. And he'd say, "Ah, just a 'alf a glass." That's the way he'd talk, "Just a 'alf a glass."
Grandma Lovejoy was up there looking down, the women were all watching the men down there you know from this window and they was up there, the cook stove was right there, stirring up everything for us to eat, getting dinner ready. I remember my mother tell it a lot of times. Grandma Lovejoy says "Anytime Abial," she didn't say Abial, but Bial [Bile], "Anytime Bial gets down to 'alf a glass," she says, "It won't be long now!"
Some of them got a little drunk you know, some of them got a little sick, and this and that."
"They made their own beer?" asked Chuck.
"No," continued Mark, "they hauled it in from the coast someplace, bought a barrel. Near as I could remember, a thirty gallon barrel, or something like that. And put it down there and put a spigot in it ya know so they could draw their beer and they probably pitched in a dollar apiece and bought the kegger for the deal. At that time, women didn't know what beer tasted like. They just didn't drink. You didn't see a woman in a saloon or anything like that, in those days at all. If you'd see a woman in a saloon, you'd walk on the other side of the street from her.
"I think Aunt Hattie said, at these parties, they never had any alcohol," said Jeff.
"If they did have it, it was somebody's who brought it in, kept it hid out so far away, the men might have it. Some of those parties, like at the school house dances, people would bring a bottle of whiskey, but it was hid way off. Whenever they took a drink they went way off, a couple of them, and get a drink and come back. It was none of it near the place, and they'd have a garlic in their other pocket, you wouldn't smell the liquor! That's what they used to do."
Ukiah City Press (Ukiah, California) Fri, Nov 1, 1878, Page 5
Real Estate Transfers.
A Lovejoy to B F Warren, 160 acres in tp 11 n, r 15 w, $1,500.
"Abial Lovejoy was a man of great strength who had been a "great amateur wrestler" in his youth. A dislocated elbow ended that career and also prevented his being accepted into the Army during the Civil War, a lifelong disappointment.
In 1875 Abial, Harriet and their three boys left the security of home and set out to join the Warrens (Harriet's brother) in California . They traveled across the country by rail in a 50 car immigrant train. When the train passed through Iowa they were joined by another migrating family, Steve and Princetta Elder with their children, seven year old Charles and four year old Bertha. That was the beginning of a lifetime friendship between the two families. Upon reaching California, the two families separated. The Elders went to Sacramento, and the Lovejoys went to Gualala where they lived for the next few years operating Uncle Frank Warren's Salt Point Hotel.
The Lovejoys had been in touch with other members of their family who had moved West and the decision was made to move on in the search for a permanent home site. So once again the family packed everything they owned and traveled by wagon train to the Sacramento Valley where they visited briefly with their friends the Elders, who were in the process of packing their own move to the coast. There was plenty of work, Steve Elder told the Lovejoys, at the new mill which had opened at Wages Creek below Westport. But the Lovejoys continued their journey to the small farming community in western Montana where their relatives had homesteaded.
Their oldest sons, Loriston and Charles, stayed for only one winter. Harriet and Abial stuck it out for two more years, but the severe cold of those Montana winters proved too much for them and in the spring of 1885 they packed up again and headed for Wages Creek to rejoin their oldest sons and the Elder family. There Abial became the head sawyer at the newly built mill at DeHaven.
And then the Lovejoys met a man named Cole who had homesteaded 160 acres near Steve and Princetta Elder and set up a small mill for making shakes. The Elders had homesteaded 160 acres along the South Fork of the Eel River, several miles inland from the Wages Creek Mill and the mill at DeHaven. The Elder men continued to work the coast while the women stayed on the homestead to protect it from claim jumpers. Abial and his sons helped Cole build a small house near where Fox Creek emptied into the South Fork and, at Cole's insistence, the family moved in. Harriet Lovejoy was delighted to be so close to her friend, Princetta, and was happy to make the move. In 1891, Cole decided to move on and turned over his property to the Lovejoys. At the same time, George Lovejoy laid claim to the 160 acres adjoining the Cole property.
In 1892, when Lori married Lou Lockhart they moved into the Lovejoy home. Harriet now had another woman in the house to help her with the chores, including care of the huge garden and the accumulating numbers of farm animals. The original house was enlarged, and a new barn and outbuildings built to accommodate the growing family. Uncle Warren's wife had died in Gualala and he asked the Lovejoys to take in his youngest son Fred, then 12 years old. Two years later George married Annie Lockhart and they, too moved into the family complex at the foot of Fox Creek.
By this time, a road had gone in along the deeply ravined tumbling creek leading from the Elder's place back to the Lovejoys, the creek now known as Elder Creek. The Lovejoys built the road with teams to pull logs and with homemade scrapers and plows fashioned by George. Bridges were built of huge timbers felled on the land and dragged into place with stringers carried across by hand and then fastened to the team for pulling.
When Fred's father, Uncle Warren, retired he came to live with the Lovejoys. Abial and Harriet were getting along in years and Harriet was being slowly crippled by arthritis, so every extra hand around the place was welcome. Various assorted cousins, uncles and aunts were in and out in an almost constant stream of family togetherness. Wilderness Lodge was the name finally given to the ever enlarging complex of buildings where Grandpa and Grandma Lovejoy lived and which made up the home of Lori and Lou.
Abial and Harriet and the Elders were dear friends and frequently went on horseback rides and overnight camping trips by themselves. One of their favorite places to go was Soda Springs, where the berry picking was especially good. Once they found an old board down in the creek which they carried up to camp and placed over a log so they could use it as a teeter totter. This was when all four were well along in years.
It was an unhappy time for everyone when Grandma Lovejoy could no longer go along on these joyous excursions, as she became increasingly crippled by arthritis. The last few years of her life she was unable to walk and spent her days in a rocking chair, under the watchful eye of the grandchildren. Ceil Lovejoy remembers helping Grandma dress in the mornings, bringing a pan of warm water from the stove for her to wash in, and gently combing her hair. The rocking chair would be dragged from room to room, but Grandma's favorite place to be was in the kitchen. The chair would be pulled to the kitchen table, and while the children washed the dishes, Grandma would dry and stack them as she talked about her girlhood in Maine.
With Grandma unable to help with the heavier chores around the house, Grandpa took over, not only helping with the work in the family's small mill but also with the laundry, cooking and gardening. Annie, George and their children spent as much time as they could at Lori's after the old people could no longer move around as they once had. There are memories of Grandpa peeling and coring apples to hand around, or putting pieces of salmon on a stick to toast in the fireplace, followed by big pans of popping corn. Grandma Lovejoy taught the girls to sew, and Ceil and Bessie were making quilt blocks by the time they were seven years old, sewing one careful stitch at a time.
When Grandpa Lovejoy died of a heart attack in 1903 while making shakes in the mill, Grandma never recovered from her grief and followed him two years later. Their deaths left a great void in the two families. "I had been my Grandpa's shadow from the day I was born," Ceil Lovejoy reflects. "I would crawl into his lap every evening to go to sleep and then he'd carry me off to bed. And, the last two years of Grandma's life, I was seldom far from her side."
(From an interview with Mark Walker in 1987)
"...Well, Abial [pronounced 'A-bile', with a long i] from their talk and everything, I thought might be English, didn't sound Scotch, but people come from Maine, their talk, their sounds is not like Scotch, so I might be mixed up.
I remember when I was about five years old, they had a fourth of July celebration at the homestead. Everybody from around there came. I told you I guess, they had a little creek that used to run down there. All the men would go down there and they had a keg of beer down there. I was about five years old I guess. Had a burlap sack over the top of it, poured water over it to keep it cool, you know. And _ was serving beer around there. _ Glasses, cups.... Oh ah a dozen men around there. There was Fred Warren, Mitchell, Lovejoy, Lori, ...
The women were up, as I always tell it, up in the kitchen, 50 to 60 feet up the creek. There was a big window where you could look out, look right down there, at all the men down there. Grandma Lovejoy was in the kitchen. All the women were in the kitchen getting dinner ready. While they were doing all the work the men were down there drinking beer! You don't have to tell that, you know that without being told!
So, someone said, "Ah, Mr. Lovejoy, don't cha want another beer here?" You know. And he'd say, "Ah, just a 'alf a glass." That's the way he'd talk, "Just a 'alf a glass."
Grandma Lovejoy was up there looking down, the women were all watching the men down there you know from this window and they was up there, the cook stove was right there, stirring up everything for us to eat, getting dinner ready. I remember my mother tell it a lot of times. Grandma Lovejoy says "Anytime Abial," she didn't say Abial, but Bial [Bile], "Anytime Bial gets down to 'alf a glass," she says, "It won't be long now!"
Some of them got a little drunk you know, some of them got a little sick, and this and that."
"They made their own beer?" asked Chuck.
"No," continued Mark, "they hauled it in from the coast someplace, bought a barrel. Near as I could remember, a thirty gallon barrel, or something like that. And put it down there and put a spigot in it ya know so they could draw their beer and they probably pitched in a dollar apiece and bought the kegger for the deal. At that time, women didn't know what beer tasted like. They just didn't drink. You didn't see a woman in a saloon or anything like that, in those days at all. If you'd see a woman in a saloon, you'd walk on the other side of the street from her.
"I think Aunt Hattie said, at these parties, they never had any alcohol," said Jeff.
"If they did have it, it was somebody's who brought it in, kept it hid out so far away, the men might have it. Some of those parties, like at the school house dances, people would bring a bottle of whiskey, but it was hid way off. Whenever they took a drink they went way off, a couple of them, and get a drink and come back. It was none of it near the place, and they'd have a garlic in their other pocket, you wouldn't smell the liquor! That's what they used to do."
Ukiah City Press (Ukiah, California) Fri, Nov 1, 1878, Page 5
Real Estate Transfers.
A Lovejoy to B F Warren, 160 acres in tp 11 n, r 15 w, $1,500.
Events
| Birth | 12 Aug 1826 | Sidney, Kennebec, Maine, United States |  |  | |
| Census | 12 Aug 1850 | Charleston, Penobscot, Maine, United States | | | |
| Marriage | 26 Feb 1858 | Charleston, Penobscot, Maine, United States - Harriet Watson Warren | | ||
| Census (family) | 1860 | Charleston, Penobscot, Maine, United States - Harriet Watson Warren | | | |
| Census (family) | 1870 | Charleston, Penobscot, Maine, United States - Harriet Watson Warren | | | |
| Census (family) | 7 Jun 1880 | Salt Point, Sonoma, California, United States - Harriet Watson Warren | | | |
| Census (family) | Jun 1900 | Long Valley Township, Mendocino, California, United States - Harriet Watson Warren | | | |
| Voter Registration | 1904 | Jackson Precinct, Mendocino, California, United States | | | |
| Death | 15 Apr 1904 | Elder Creek, Mendocino Co., California, | | ||
| Burial | Branscomb, Mendocino, California, United States | | |
Families
| Spouse | Harriet Watson Warren (1837 - 1907) |
| Child | William Norton Lovejoy (1859 - 1862) |
| Child | Loriston Hale Lovejoy (1863 - 1958) |
| Child | Charles Warren Lovejoy (1865 - 1929) |
| Child | George Edgar Lovejoy (1870 - 1962) |
| Father | Jacob Lovejoy (1780 - 1871) |
| Mother | Sarah Hastings "Sally" Townsend (1797 - 1879) |
| Sibling | Mary Lovejoy (1818 - 1868) |
| Sibling | Caroline Sharon Lovejoy (1819 - ) |
| Sibling | Charles E. Lovejoy (1820 - ) |
| Sibling | Loriston Hale Lovejoy (1821 - 1909) |
| Sibling | Octavia Townsend Lovejoy (1822 - ) |
| Sibling | Sarah H. Lovejoy (1824 - 1904) |
| Sibling | Laura Anna Lovejoy (1828 - ) |
| Sibling | Rachel? Louisa Lovejoy (1838 - ) |
Notes
Birth
The Lovejoy Genealogy has b. 1827Census
38, 40 Jacob Lovejoy, 76 M, Shoemaker, MESally 61 F, ME
Loriston H. 28, M, Farmer, ME
Clara G. 22, F, ME
Thatcher, 8/12, M ME
Abial Lovejoy 24 M, Farmer, ME
Laura A. 21 F, ME
Louisia 12 F, ME
39, 41 John Abbot
Caroline & family.
Marriage
This marriage was also recorded in Sangerville, Piscataquis Co., MaineCensus (family)
177, 183. Abial Lovejoy. 33 M, Farmer 1,300 real estate, 586 personal estate. MEHarriet. 22 F. Housewife
William N. 1 M
Jacob Lovejoy. 79 M. Ret. Farmer
Sarah. 70 F. Ret housewife
Lewiston H. Lovejoy 38 M. Miner
Clara G. 32 F. Housewife
Thatcher F. 10 M
Amanda B. 8 F
Census (family)
Lovejoy, Abial. 44 M Farmer 800 real estate, 358 personal estate MEHarriet 32 F Keeping house
Loriston H 7 M
Charles W. 5 M
Jacob 90 M
Sarah 80 F
Census (family)
E. LOVEJOY Self M Male W 53 ME Hotel ME MEH. W. LOVEJOY Wife M Female W 42 ME Keeping House ME ME
L. H. LOVEJOY Son S Male W 17 ME At Home ME ME
Charles LOVEJOY Son S Male W 15 ME At Home ME ME
George LOVEJOY Son S Male W 9 ME At Home ME ME
William RICHARDSON Other S Male W 23 CA Teamster NY IL
George SMITH Other S Male W 46 ENG Laborer ENG ENG
Thomas LEHY Other S Male W 33 IRE Laborer IRE IRE
---------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------
Source Information:
Census Place Salt Point, Sonoma, California
Family History Library Film 1254084
NA Film Number T9-0084
Page Number 225C
Census (family)
Living with their son Loriston.190, 190 Lovejoy, Loriston H, Head WM, May 1863, 37 yrs, Married 7 yrs, ME ME ME, Farmer, own free farm.
Lulu M. Wife WF, Sept 1873, 26 yrs, M-7, blank, CA ME NY,
Bessie M. Daughter WF, Sept 1893, 6 yrs, single CA ME CA
Chas E. Son, WM, Feb 1895, 5, single CA ME CA
Lucile M. Daughter, WF, May 1896, single CA ME CA
Abial, Father, WM, Aug 1824, 75 yrs, Married 42 yrs, ME ME ME farm laborer
Harriet W, Mother, WF, Feb 1837, 63 yrs, M-42, 4 child born 3 living. ME ME ME
191, 191 Lovejoy, George E, Head, WM, Sept 1870, 29, Married 5 yrs, ME ME ME, Farmer, own free farm
Annie E, Wife, WF, Oct 1875, 24, M-5, 2 child born & living, CA ME NY
Hattie M, Daughter, WF, Nov 1895, 4, single, CA ME CA
Robert T, Son, WM, Oct 1899, single, CA ME CA
Warren, Fred H, B-in-law, WM, Dec 1881, 18 single, CA ME IL, trapper
Leland S, B-in-law, WM, Aug 1887, 12, single, CA ME IL, farm laborer
Voter Registration
No. Name Age Post Office22 Lovejoy, Laurison Hale .................39 Branscomb
23 Lovejoy, Abial...................................78 Branscomb
24 Lockhart, Benjamin Franklin.......60 Branscomb
25 Lovejoy, George Edgar.................31 Branscomb
Burial
Abial and Harriet are buried on what is now the property of the mill in Branscomb. There is some question of whether the graves are still intact. (Kathy Smith)Endnotes
1. Claudia Clarke, "Branscomb," database, Find A Grave (http://www.findagrave.com : accessed 7 November 2011), .
2. U.S. Census images. Heritage Quest Online. Subscription database through the Sonoma County Public Library. (ProQuest LLC, 2009.), 1850 > MAINE > PENOBSCOT > CHARLESTON Series: M432 Roll: 265 Page: 176.
3. U.S. Census images. Heritage Quest Online. Subscription database through the Sonoma County Public Library. (ProQuest LLC, 2009.), 1860 > Maine > PENOBSCOT > CHARLESTON Series: M653 Roll: 447 Page: 584.
4. U.S. Census images. Heritage Quest Online. Subscription database through the Sonoma County Public Library. (ProQuest LLC, 2009.), 1870 > Maine > PENOBSCOT > CHARLESTON Series: M593 Roll: 553 Page: 362.
5. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints., Transcription of the United States Federal Population Census - 1880 (http://www.familysearch.org/ Oct. 2002).
6. U.S. Census images. Heritage Quest Online. Subscription database through the Sonoma County Public Library. (ProQuest LLC, 2009.), 1900 > California > MENDOCINO > LONG VALLEY TWP Series: T623 Roll: 93 Page: 105.
7. "California, U.S., Voter Registrations, 1900-1968," database, Ancestry.com (: accessed 21 November 2020), Benjamin Franklin Lockhart; citing State of California, United States. Great Register of Voters. Sacramento, California: California State Library..
8. Claudia Clarke, "Branscomb," database, Find A Grave (http://www.findagrave.com : accessed 7 November 2011), .
9. Smith, Kathy, Lockhart, Lovejoy and Warren genealogy. (Ukiah, CA: Kathy Smith,
10. Claudia Clarke, "Branscomb," database, Find A Grave (http://www.findagrave.com : accessed 7 November 2011), .