Crocketts of Maine

There were Crocketts in Maine in the 18-19th century. Just a couple of miles from Jim and Mary's house is a short road called "Crockett's Beach Road." It leads to a small, pebbley beach, "Crockett's Beach." It turns out that Crockett's Beach is the ideal place to collect kelp to put as compost on the garden, and that's what Jim, Mary and Ellen were doing yesterday. There is enough kelp there for anybody who wants it.

Picking up kelp*************************

Crockett's Beach road sign

Crockett's Beach looking south

Crockett's Beach looking north*****************

Later: Mary had a History of Owls Head which I was able to look at and I learned quite a bit about the Crocketts in Owl's Head (which was South Thomaston when they were here).

This map was created in 1971 by local historian Malcolm Putnam Jackson. It shows the original lots sold by Henry Knox and his wife, Lucy Waldo Flucker, around 1770-1780; information from the Knox County Registry of Deeds. There are four mentions of Crocketts on this map: three of Nathaniel, and one of John. It's pretty clear from this map that Crockett's Beach got its name from Nathaniel Crockett who owned that land. I also found a reference in an old archive in my computer that says that back in England the brother of the ancestor of the Crocketts who settled in Maine was the ancestor of the Crocketts in Virginia which is where my branch comes from.


This history has an added interest for me because Henry Knox - who sold the land to the Crocketts in Owl's Head - figures significantly in the life of an early minister of the Guilford church, Jason Chamberlain. Henry Knox, who had been a general in the revolutionary war, brought Jason Chamberland to the Thomaston Church in 1806. Shortly after Chamberlain arrived, not more than a month or so, Knox died as the result of swallowing a chicken bone which perforated his intestine. After Knox's death, Chamberlain had to leave the church because the church could not pay his salary. I learned from the Owls Head history that when Knox died his widow was essentially bankrupt, and Knox had been a major patron of the church. Chamberlain came to Westminster, VT from Thomaston, and then a year later came to Guilford. So there are a lot of little connections in all of this.