Genealogical and Family History
of the
STATE OF MAINE

Compiled under the editorial supervision of George Thomas Little, A. M., Litt. D.

LEWIS HISTORICAL PUBLISHING COMPANY
New York
1909.

[Please see Index page for full citation.]

[Transcribed by Coralynn Brown]

[Many families included in these genealogical records had their beginnings in Massachusetts.]

CRAM The name of Cram is probably derived from the German "Kram," meaning a retail shop. The patronymic is rather unusual in the United States, and the earlier generations seem confined almost entirely to the neighborhood of New Hampshire, where families of the name are found in the towns of Hampton, Francestown, Raymond, Weare, Wilton, Antrim, Nottingham, Hancock, Acworth and Washington. Without doubt, they are all descended from a common ancestor, John Cram, who came to Exeter in 1639. (I) John Cram, the first American ancestor, emigrated from England, and in 1630 was one of the early settlers of Exeter, New Hampshire, which town had been founded the year before. In the combination formed for the early government of the town, his name appears as Crame. When he came to Exeter, his signature, like that of so many men of the time, was simply a mark, but he afterward learned to write. In 1648-49 he was elected townsman, or what was afterward known as selectman. About 1650 he left Exeter and located at Hampton, settling on the south side of Taylor's river, which became Hampton Falls, his house being nar the site of the Weare monument. With his wife, Esther, he became a member of the First Church of Hampton. Children: 1. Joseph, drowned June 24, 1648, aged about fifteen years. 2. Benjamin, married Argentine Cromwell. 3. Thomas, mentioned below. 4. Mary, married Abraham Tilton, Jan. 26, 1666. 5. Lydia, born July 27, 1648. Argentine Cromwell, whom Benjamin Cram married, Nov. 29, 1662, was said to have been a relativew of Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of England. Many of their descendants settled in Raymond, New Hampshire, and one of them was Rev. Jacob Cram, who was graduated from Dartmouth College in 1782, and was for a time pastor of the Congregational church in Hopkinton, N. H. The record of the death of the original settler in the town book of Hampton reads: "Died 5 of March, 1681, good old John Cram, one just in his generation ." His wife, Esther Cram, died May 16, 1677. (II) Thomas, third son of John and Esther Cram, was born probably after 1650, at Hampton Falls, N. H. On Dec. 20, 1681, he married Elizabeth, daughter of Nathaniel Weare. Children: 1. Mary, perhaps the one who married Ebenezer Knowlton. 2. John, born Jan. 12, 1686. 3. Thomas, mentioned below. 4. Elizabeth, born Oct. 15, 1702. (III) Thomas (2), second son and third child of Thomas (1) and Elizabeth (Weare) Cram, was born Nov. 9, 1696, probably at Hampton Falls, N. H. He lived in that town, where he was captain of the militia. Capt. Thomas Cram married Mary Colman, of the neighboring town of Kingston. Among their children was Jedediah. (IV) Jedediah, son of Capt. Thomas (2) and Mary (Colman) Cram, was born at Hampton Falls in 1738. He lived in different towns in that state, first in Weare, but later in Francestown, where he died. He signed the association test in Weare in 1776, and he was on the tax-list of that town from 1788 to 1793. He married Abigail Hooke, who died in 1814, aged seventy years. Children: 1. Sarah, born Feb. 6, 1761, married Moses Sargent, and died in Warren, Vermont. 2. Anna, born Sept. 3, 1763, married James Steele, and died at East Roxbury, Vermont. 3. Asahel, born Jan., 1766, married Lydia Lewis, and died at Antrim, N. H. 4. Stephen, see forward. 5. Lois, born Aug. 7, 1773, married, first, William Campbell, and second, Robert Eaton, lived in Charlestown, Mass., and Ridgeway, New York. 6. Mary, born April 9, 1776, married Daniel Blaisdell, and died at Cambridge, Vermont. 7. Joseph, born Dec. 28, 1778, moved to the west. 8. Jacob, born Nov. 25, 1780, married, first, Nancy Gove, and second, Maria Adams, of Limerick, Maine, to which state he removed. 9. Jedediah (2), born July 30, 1782, married Lydia Butterfield, and died at Warren, Vermont. Jedediah Cram, the father, died at Francestown, New Hampshire, June 3, 1828, aged ninety years. (V) Captain Stephen, second son and fourth child of Jedediah and Abigail (Hooke) Cram, was born Sept. 14, 1768, in New Hampshire, probably at Weare. He lived in Deering, in that state, and at the time of his marriage, and afterwards at Francestown. He held a captain's commission in the militia. On June 22, 1790, he married Sarah Lewis, eldest child of Deacon David and Lydia (Clough) Lewis. She was born Aug. 20, 1771, at Francestown. Children: 1. Lewis, born Nov. 24, 1790, was a fifer in the war of 1812, and married Martha K. Bradford. 2. Daniel, born April 22, 1794, graduated at Dartmouth College in 1812, and died Oct. 14, 1814. 3. Levi, born April 7, 1797, married Mary L. Plummer, and died at Bangor, Maine. 4. Mary, born Dec. 17, 1803, lived in Manchester, N. H. 5. George Green, born May 23, 1806, married Rebecca H. Bradford, and lived in Franestown. 6. Laura, born March 14, 1809, married Henry B. Hall, and lived at Bethel, Maine. 7. Gilman, see forward. Captain Stephen Cram, the father, died at Francestown, N. H. May 2, 1853. The United States army claims among its distinguished general officers Thomas Jefferson Cram, born in New Hampshire in 1805, a graduate of the U. S. Military Academy, appointed from New Hampshire, his native state, and commissioned second lieutenant U.S.A. in 1826. He remained at the academy as assistant professor of mathematics, 1826-29, and as full professor of natural and expreimental philosophy, 1824-36. He resigned from the army in 1836, to take up the business of civil engineering in connection with railroad building which he carried on successflly 1836-38. He re-enlisted in the army in 1838, was made a member of the topographical corps and given the rank of captain. His service was largely in surveying the territory west of the Mississippi river and laying out army routes. In 1845 he was sent into Texas as a member of the military reconnaissance party, to determine the condition of the routes of travel incident to a proposed army movement against Mexico, then harassing the people of the independent states of Texas. This duty accomplished, he was made chief topographical engineer of the newly formed Department of the Pacific, and he remained on that duty 1855-58. He was promoted to the rank of major in August, and to that of lieutenant-colonel in Sept., 1861, and served on the staff of General John E. Wood, in command of Fort Monroe and the Dept. of Virginian 1861-62, and was transferred with General Wood to command the middle department, with headquarters at Baltimore, Maryland, after the final surrender of Norfolk, Virginia, May 8, 1862, and he remained on the staff of Wood, who had been made a major-general, May 16, 1862, up to the transfer of that officer to the command of the Dept. of the East, with headquarters at New York, in Jan., 1863, leaving that post on March 3, 1863, to resume his place in the engineer corps. He was promoted to the rank of colonel in Nov., 1865, and he was breveted brigadier and major-general in the regular army for services during the civil war. He continued in the service up to Feb. 22, 1869, when he was retired by reason of age limit, and he took up his residence in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he died Dec. 20, 1883. (VI) Gilman, seventh child and fifth son of Stephen and Sarah (Lewis) Cram, was born in Francestown, N. H., June 21, 1811, and died in Bangor, Maine, June 11, 1896. He resided in his native town until he found employment, as a young man, in Boston, Mass. In 1844 he removed to Bangor, Maine, and became a bookkeeper for Pendleton & Ross, a well-known firm of ship chandlers and tugboat managers. He afterward engaged in the lumber business, his particular line being manufacturing, which he carried on in Bradley and in Brewer. In his later years he conducted a commission business in Bangor. He was a sworn sealer and surveyor, and for fifty consecutive years was a notary public. He had been a prominent business man, and was very highly repsected by all who knew him. He was one of the oldest citizens of Bangor, and an excellent example of what good and reulgar habits of life will do for a person, for his eighty-five years sat as lightly upon him as the years of many men of twenty or even thirty years younger than he. His health remained good unti a few months before his death. He attended to his business as usual up to about three weeks before his demise, when he took a severe cold which ended his life. From 1850 to 1855 he was a regular attendant at the First Parish Church, and from the organization of the Republican party he was a sterling and staunch Republican. He married Elizabeth A. Linnell, born in Gorham, Maine, Nov., 1825, died May 19, 1899. She was the daughter of Elisha Linnell, of Gorham. Children: 1. Charles, who died young. 2. William, who died young. 3. Franklin W., mentioned below. 4. Frederic, who died unmarried. 5. Mary. 6. Nellie, who married Charles Gould, of Bangor, and is now deceased. 7. Alice, who married ____ Kenne and resides in Bangor. (VII) Franklin Webster, third son of Gilman and Elizabeth A. (Linnell) Cram, was born in Bangor, Maine, June 21, 1846, and educated in the public schools. He entered the service of the Maine Central Railroad at Bangor, Oct. 1, 1860, and worked as a freight-porter until 1867. From the latter date until Sept., 1870, he was assistant agent for the company at Bangor. He then became agent for the European and North American Railway Company at Bangor, and filled that position so satisfactorily that in Jan., 1872, he was promoted to general freight-agent of that road, and served in the company in that capacity until the following September, when he became assistant superintendent and subsequent general freight-agent for the company, and he discharge the duties of that positon until Oct., 1875. He was general superintendent of the road 1875-82, when he resigned to become general eastern freight-agnet of the Maine Central railroad and general manger of the Katahdin Iron Works railway, serving in the double capacity until June 1, 1885. At that date his term of service as general manager of the New Brunswick railway began, and continued until July 1, 1890. From March, 1891, he has been general manger of the Bangor & Asrrostook road. From 1895 to Sept., 1900, he was also vice-president of the same road, and since Sept., 1900, has been president of the road. He is also president of the Northern Maine Seaport Railroad Company, general manager of the Aroostook Construction Company, which built the Bangor and Aroostook and Northern Maine Seaport roads; president of the Northern Telegraph Company; president of the Bangor Investment Company. His interest in public affairs cause him to accept membership in the American Academy of Political and Social Science, and in the Civic Federation of New England. He is also a member of the Maine Genealogical Society. In politics he is a Republican. His life has been devoted to successful railroad work, in which he has been a msot industrious and energetic toiler, and to him more than to any man northern maine owes its development in commerce, agriculture and manufactures. He is alert, couteous, approachable, and highly esteemed by his fellow townsmen and by a large circle of business acquaintances throughout the U. S. who are allied with the railroad interests of the country. We learn from one of the msot prominent railroad men in the U.S., who visited the great system of the Bangor and Aroostook railroad by invitation of Percy R. Todd, general manager of the system, and spent four days in going over the entire route and into the rich region made accessible to commerce by its construction, as follows; "I have but one criticism to make adverse to the perfect constuction and equipment of the entire system, and the single fault can be remedied at an expense of not over five hundred dollars." A New York man making a tour of the system reported substantially as follows: "When Mr. Cram leaves this earth he will leave behind him an accomplished work of more worth to the state of Maine than any other single individual in New England." He adds: "Mr. Cram is the John J. Hill of the east with the sting left out," which remark he interpreted as meaning that he had done more for the northeast than Hill had done for the northwest, but all without the domineering spirit that accompanied the work of Mr. Hill. The Bangor & Aroostook Railroad Company has constructed more than four hundred miles of permanent road-bed, and equipped it with steel rails and all the accessories of the high-class railroad built for heavy traffic, and all this within the actual borders of the state. No other system in the stae exceeds its mileage and none in the country exceeds the commercial wealth embraced within the reach of its lines. His plans, as carried out for securing a deep-water terminal not affected by the climate or hindered by accumulated ice that block the navigation of the Maine rivers, are extensie to the extreme. From the main line above Bangor he caused to be bult a double-track railway that parallels the Penobscot river and reaches Searsport, on the Atlantic Ocean, a distance of sixty miles. This line affords an unobstructed outlet to the sea, and was completed in the spring of 1906. It was at once put to use for the transportation of lumber from the interior of the state for the constuction of an immense system of docks and warehouses and wharves, said to be the largest in the world, surpassing any terminal facilities of railroad traffic either in Boston or New York. Lumbermen are afforded storage facilities at little expense, which enables them to hold or reship the product of their mills in the interior of the states as the market dictates, and they secure in this way low freight-rates, irrespective of season. The piers already built and in use are respectively 1,760 and 1,600 feet in length. The cost of construction of the railroad along the river to render the seaport available was four million dollars, and the terminal improvements already constructed at the harbor have been made at a cost of four million dollars more. Prominent shippers and lumber-dealers consider their interests to have been greatly protected by this enterprise on the part of Mr. Cram, and they pronounce the road to be the most substantial and best equipped of any in the state, if not in New England. It serves as an outlet to the great unexplored and unavailable wealth of soil and forest of the northern counties of the state, and the potato industry alone easily furnishes the working capital necessary to its maintenance. In 1896 Aroostook county produced 40,000 bushes of potatoes, whidh found buyers at an expense that almost used up the entire proceeds of the crop in transportation to market. In 1908 20,000,000 bushels were carried cheaply to market, and afforded a large profit to the farmers, as they have been shipped from Searsport district by water to Boston, Philadelphia and Baltimore at low freight rates. One vessel-load was sent to Cuba, and found a profitable market. One thousand carloads of seed-potatoes were sent by sea to the Carolinas, and one trainload went to Texas by water. Scotland called upon Maine for seven steamer-loads of basswood spools, to be used in the thread manufactories of that country, and two ship-loads of orange-box shooks were sent to Italy. This is but the beginning of the great industries this road and seaport has opened to the world. Over forty lumber-mills are now located directly on this great line, and these will be duplicated many times as the necessity of feeders reach out from the main line into the forests on either side. The monument Mr. Cram has built is one that is marked on very side with the inspiring word, "Prosperity." His investments will pay not only a large dividend to himself and to his heirs, but even larger to the population that will makes homes and cultivate farms all along the route after the wealth of the forests have given place to the wealth to be wrested from the virgin soil that repays the husbandman so handsomely for his labor. There will be in the state of Maine no envious eyes turned toward the wealth accumulated by Mr. Cram, as he has merely blazed the pathway in the wilderness that the seekers after wealth only need to follow to be prosperous. Mr. Cram was married in Sept., 1872, to Martha Cook, daughter of William P. and Phebe (Cook) Wingate, of Newburyport, Mass. Child: Wingate Franklin, born in Bangor, Maine, is of the eighth generation from John Cram, the emigrant, 1639. (VIII) Wingate Franklin, only child of Franklin Webster and Martha (Cook) (Wingate) Cram, was born in Bangor, Maine, Dec. 4, 1877. He was prepared for college in private schools in Bangor, at Phillips' Academy, Anodver, Mass., 1894-95, in a private school in Lexington, Mass., 1895-96. In the fall of 1896 matriculated at Harvard University, and he has graduated with the degree of A. B. in 1900. He then took a one year's course in law at Columbia University, New York, and in 1901 returned to his home in Bangor, Maine, where he engaged in the business of railroading, in connection with the Bangor & Aroostook Railroad Company, of which his father is president. CRAM George O. K. Cram, a successful business man of Portland, and a representative in the fourth generation of this branch of the Cram family in the city of Portland, all having resided on State street, where he was born, is a man of marked business ability and strict integrity, and he has given his time and influence in favor of the advancement of all great moral questions, always aiding in all public efforts which have contributed to the educational and business prosperity of his native city. (I) Nehemiah Cram, the first of this family of whom we have definite information, was born in Portland, Maine. He was educated in the schools of that city, and later he became a member of the firm of Cram & Cahoon, this connection continuing for many years. He purchased a house at 156 State street, and in 1836 sold it to Ether Shepley, and in this house the High Street Congregational Church was founded. Mr. Cram was a believer in the doctrines of that denomination, and his political allegiance was given to the Republican party. He married (first) a Miss Morse; (second) a Miss Martin. Children: Nehemiah Pinkney, Latinus, Nathaniel Octavius, Calvin H., Charles E. and Susan. (II) Nathaniel Octavius, son of Nehemiah Cram, was born in Portland, 1813, died in March, 1894-95. His education was acquired in the schools of his native city, and upon attaining manhood turned his attention to a mercantile career, following the vocation of commission merchant, dealing in corn and tobacco from Virginia. He was a man of standing and character, and consequently was chosen for positions of trust and responsibility, among which was that of director of the Casco Bank, in which capacity he served for many years, and a member of the board of aldermen, which office he filled acceptably and creditably. He married Mary Rebecca Ball Kittredge, born in 1821, died in 1861. Children: 1. George O. K., see forward. 2. Nathaniel G., born May 25, 1846, married Sarah Choate, of Portland; one child, Mary, who died ummarried. 3. Grace Mary, born Jan., 1855, married Henry A. Smith, of Boston; children: i. Eleanor K., married David Settlemeyer, of Illinois, one child, Eleanor; ii. Marion K., married Edgar Paul Jones, of Boston; one child; iii. Hammond, unmarried. (III) George Octavius Kittredge, eldest child of Nathaniel O. and Mary R. B. (Kittredge) Cram, was born in Portland, Jan. 2, 1844. He was educated in the public schools, and graduated from the high school, class of 1861. In August of the same yar he took a clerical position with Chase Brothers & Company, importers of West India goods, remaining for a period of six years. He then became an office salesman for the Forest City Sugar Refining Company, in 1867, and in due course of time his diligence and faithfulmess to the interests of the firm was rewarded by promotion to the office of treasurer. In 1887 the company was merged into the trust known as the American Sugar Refineries Company, and at this time Mr. Cram and George S. Hunt formed the firm of George S. Hunt & Cram, sugar brokers and agents in Portland for the American Sugar Refineries Company, which relation continued until 1896, when Mr. Hunt died and was succeeded in business by his son, Arthur K. Hunt. For three decades Mr. Cram owned and lived in the square brick house at 92 Spring street. His church connection is with St. Luke's Cathedral, in which he has served as vestryman for a quarter of a century. He casts his vote as an independent Republican. He has always refused office, his only service aside from that of vestryman in St. Luke's Cathedral having been member or the executive committee of the Cumberland Club for two terms of three years each. He has attained high rank in the Masonic fraternity, being a thirty-second degree Mason, and a member of the following named organizations of that order: Ancient Landmark Lodge, Greenleaf Royal Arch Chapter, Portland Council, Portland Commandery, and all the bodies of the Scottish Rite. Mr. Cram married (first) in Portland, Sept. 13, 1871, Ellen H., daughter of St. John and Susan (Hopkins) Smith; she died in Nov., 1899. Children: 1. Susan Hopkins, born June 30, 1872, married June 3, 1903, Dr. William Pearce Coues, of Boston; one child, William Pearce Jr. 2. Elinor Kittredge, born Jan. 22, 1785, married May 27, 1903, Harold Everett Sanderson, of Chicago; children: George Kittredge and Edward Cram Sanderson. Mr. Cram married (second), July 3, 1901, Etta Estabrook, of Lexington, Mass., daughter of Joseph and Mary Estabrook, and granddaughter of the Rev. Joseph Estabrook, pastor of Congregational Church at Acton, Mass., during the revolutionary war, and his name is carved on the Revolutionary Soldiers' Monument at Acton, Mass.