52 Ancestors: #31, Chester F. Kirk, Part 1: From Maine to Bristol

Some time ago, in my fourteenth "52 Ancestors" post, The Not-So-Honorary Aunts, I said of my paternal grandfather:

To be more precise, he had been married four times previously, and there were several other children, but that's another story or four...

Chester F. Kirk, date unknown¹

To be even more precise, Chester Kirk had a total of five wives, one other "liaison," and
nine children, including one stillborn, two who died in infancy, and six who lived to adulthood. At least, that's all I know of. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if there were others (wives, liaisons, and/or children) yet to be found. Curiosity has led me to research Chester's many relationships and try to find out what happened to all those step-grandmothers and half-uncles.

Herewith the first of "another story or four" (or maybe even more). This one is about Chester's early years, his move to Connecticut, and his first wife.

Chester F. Kirk was born 10 September 1857 in Warren, Knox County, Maine.² (His middle initial, according to one online tree, stood for Frank, but I can find no documentation stating his middle name.) He was the oldest child, only son, and only child to survive to adulthood, of Silas Kirk and Sarah C. Sukeforth. I know almost nothing about his childhood, aside from a 1925 photo of the house where he was born,³ and that his family moved around a lot: from Warren to Union before 1860;⁴ to Washington by 1861;⁵ to Auburn sometime between 1861 and 1867;⁶ and finally to Freeport around 1875.⁷

Chester Kirk in front of the home where he was born, Warren, Maine, 1925³

1860 U.S. census, Union, Knox County, Maine, Silas Kirk household

1870 U.S. census, Auburn, Androscoggin County, Maine, Silas Kirk household

1880 U.S. census, Freeport, Cumberland County, Maine, Silas Kirk household

Newspaper illustration of the John A. Briggs, 1901⁹

In 1880, according to the census enumeration of Silas's family in Freeport, Chester was working "in a clock shop."⁸ One might suppose from this that the clock shop was in Freeport, but Freeport, Maine, wasn't exactly known as a clock-making hub; on the contrary, it was a 19th-century ship-building center, which is why Silas, a ship's carpenter, moved there. (He may even have worked on the John A. Briggs, the largest ship ever launched in Freeport, in 1878.)⁹

As it turns out, the "clock shop" was quite a bit further south, in Bristol, Connecticut, which was known as a clock-making hub, and Chester had been enumerated there as well as in Freeport. He was boarding in the household of H. W. Hungerford, whose wife Minerva and resident brother-in-law Maurillo Soule were also both born in Maine. While Hungerford did work in a clock shop, both Chester and Maurillo worked in a "triming" [probably trimming] shop.¹⁰

1880 U.S. census, Bristol, Hartford County, Connecticut, Chester Kirk in H.W. Hungerford household

Advertisement in 1882 Bristol city directory

What they trimmed wasn't specified, but in Bristol, it was almost certainly clocks, and indeed several manufacturers of "Clock Trimmings," such as Albert Warner, advertised in the city directories.¹¹ What clinched the identification of this Chester Kirk as "my" Chester was the discovery that Maurillo Soule was born in Freeport, Maine, and like Chester was double-enumerated in 1880 in both Bristol and Freeport – where his parents said he worked "in a clock factory."¹² Very likely, these two young men had decided they weren't destined to be shipwrights like their fathers (1880 being essentially the end of the wooden ship-building era), and had gone off together to investigate the booming Bristol clock industry of which Maurillo's brother-in-law was a part, but their parents still reported them to the census taker in Freeport (perhaps believing – or at least hoping – that their sons' absences would only be temporary).

B. Hitchcock advertisement, 1882 Bristol city directory

But their stay in Bristol was far from temporary: Maurillo settled there permanently, while Chester would spend the next dozen years in Bristol. On 27 October 1880, he took his first bride, 18-year-old Ellen "Nellie" Hitchcock,¹³ the younger daughter of Benajah Hitchcock,¹⁴ a manufacturer of paper boxes in Bristol¹⁵ and, in 1882 and 1884, Chester's employer.¹⁶ Very likely Chester and Ellen were living with her parents as well, as the city directories said Chester "b[oar]ds Divinity," Divinity Street being the location of the Hitchcock residence and business.¹⁷

Entry for Chester Kirk, 1882 Bristol city directory

Chester and Ellen had no children, and the marriage lasted only a few years. By late 1885, Chester was no longer working for Hitchcock or living on Divinity Street; he was now boarding at 25 North Street, and working for the E. Ingraham Co., perhaps the most prominent of Bristol's clock manufacturers.¹⁸ Now, perhaps they had just moved to be closer to his new employer, but the fact that he had a new employer at all seems indicative of a split from the Hitchcocks, and a separation and divorce from Ellen. Subsequent events, which probably had their genesis right at the Hitchcock paper box shop, appear to bear this out.

Entry for Chester Kirk, 1886-7 Bristol city directory

To be continued in Chester F. Kirk, Part 2: Clockmaker.

(Note: This post is in response to Amy Johnson Crow's "52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks" challenge at No Story Too Small.)

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SOURCES

1. Photo of Chester F. Kirk, date unknown; Kirk-Murphy Family Collection, privately held by the author, Virginia Beach, Virginia. Chester's daughter Geneva Kirk probably gave this tiny photo to her nephew Marshall Kirk, from whom the author inherited it in 2005.
2. Greenleaf Cilley and Jonathan P. Cilley, The Mount Desert Widow: Genealogy of the Maine Gamble Family (Rockland, Maine: Knox County Historical and Genealogical Magazine, 1895), p. 170; digital images, Internet Archive (http://archive.org/details/mountdesertwidow00cill : accessed 5 Mar 2012). Also, State of Maine, Bureau of Health, certificate of death for Dr. Chester F. Kirk, 15 Jul 1939; photocopy of certificate stamped "Not For Legal Purposes," issue date and whereabouts of original unknown; Kirk-Murphy Family Collection, privately held by the author.
3. Photo of Chester F. Kirk in front of the house where he was born in Warren, Maine, 1925, in Geneva Kirk photograph album; Kirk-Murphy Family Collection, privately held by the author, Virginia Beach, Virginia. Chester's daughter Geneva gave this small album to her nephew Marshall Kirk, from whom the author inherited it in 2005.
4. 1860 U.S. Census, Knox County, Maine, Union, p. 41 (upper left), 227 (penned upper right), dwelling 312, family 300, Silas Kirk household; digital image, ProQuest, HeritageQuest Online (access through participating libraries : accessed 7 Mar 2012).
5. Cilley and Cilley, p. 170; Abbie was b. 1861 in Washington.
6. Ibid.; Abbie d. 1867 in Auburn. Also, 1870 U.S. Census, Androscoggin County, Maine, City of Auburn Ward 2, p. 35, dwelling 237, family 318, Silas Kirk household; digital image, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org : accessed 9 Dec 2010).
7. Directory of ... the Cities of Lewiston and Auburn for 1876-7 (Boston: Greenough & Co., 1876), p. 230, no entry for Silas Kirk; database and digital images, "Maine City Directories," Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 23 Jul 2014); Silas presumably left before the directory was compiled. Also, Cyrus Eaton, Annals of the Town of Warren, in Knox County, Maine, Second Edition (Hallowell [Maine]: Masters & Livermore, 1877), p. 567; digital images, Google Books (http://books.google.com/books : accessed 11 Dec 2010); Silas "r. Freeport" by the time the book was published in 1877.
8. 1880 U.S. Census, Cumberland County, Maine, Freeport, ED 33, p. 22, dwelling 203, family 222, Silas Kirk household; digital image, ProQuest, HeritageQuest Online (access through participating libraries : accessed 9 Mar 2012).
9. Federal Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration for the State of Maine, Maine, A Guide "Down East" (n.p.: Maine Development Commission, 1937), p. 214; digital images (preview), Google Books (http://books.google.com/books?id=-n7OgTUS_ewC : accessed 22 Jul 2014). Illustration of ship in "Ship John A. Briggs is Coming Here...," San Francisco Call, 13 Aug 1901, p. 7, col. 2-4; digital images, California Digital Newspaper Collection (http://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=SFC19010813.2.91# : accessed 22 Jul 2014).
10. 1880 U.S. Census, Hartford County, Connecticut, Bristol, ED 25, p. 15, dwelling 140, family 165, H. W. Hungerford household; digital images, Ancestry.com (http://search.ancestry.com : accessed 21 Jul 2014).
11. Bristol and Plainville Directory 1882 (New Haven, Conn.: Price, Lee & Co., 1882), p. xviii, Albert Warner advertisement; database and digital images, "U.S. City Directories, 1821-1989," Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 21 Jul 2014).
12. 1880 U.S. Census, Cumberland County, Maine, Freeport, ED 33, p. 16, dwelling 161, family 175, George E. Soule household; digital images, Ancestry.com (http://search.ancestry.com : accessed 21 Jul 2014). 
13. Bristol, Connecticut, Assistant Registrar of Vital Statistics, ca 1993 letter concerning marriages of Chester F. Kirk; Marshall K. Kirk Research Files, privately held by the author, Virginia Beach, Virginia. The letter reports that Bristol records include a "marriage Oct. 27, 1880 to Ellen Hitchcock."
14. 1880 U.S. Census, Hartford County, Connecticut, Bristol, ED 25, p. 30, dwelling 261, family 335, B. Hitchcock household (accessed 3 Sep 2012).
15. Bristol and Plainville Directory 1882, p. 19, B. Hitchcock advertisement.
16. Ibid., p. 88; Bristol, Plainville and Terryville Directory for 1884-85 (New Haven, Conn.: Price, Lee & Co., 1884), p. 42; database and digital images, "U.S. City Directories, 1821-1989," Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 3 Sep 2012); entries for Chester Kirk. 
17. Ibid.
18. Bristol, Plainville and Terryville Directory for 1886-7 (New Haven, Conn.: Price, Lee & Co., 1886), p. 40, entry for Chester Kirk; database and digital images, "U.S. City Directories, 1821-1989," Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 3 Sep 2012).