Norton Genealogy of Blue Hill, Maine

Capt. Steven Norton and family occupied the Ray-Stevens-Norton place after Mr. Stevens for some years, just how many the writer cannot state. He was a sea captain, born in the town of St. George, Me., March 22, 1789; came to Blue Hill, where he continued to make his home until his death Jan. 6, 1873, aged nearly eighty-six years. He commanded coasting vessels between the town and Boston until age and infirmities compelled him to retire from a sea life. The writer sailed with him in schooner “Zodiac”, and the father of the writer also sailed with him when he was mate with Capt. Robert Means in the early part of the last century.

Few men on the coast of Maine engaged in coasting were better known than was Capt. Norton. There were few if any harbors or anchorages between Blue Hill and Boston that he had not visited; as he became timid and careful as age crept upon him, and he did not take chances where anchorage seemed to him to be more discreet. This criticism, though just in the writer’s view of the case, is not intended to be hypercritical.

Captain Norton was twice married— first Jan. 18, 1813, to Mehitable, daughter of Andrew and Mehitable Kimball Witham, born Aug. 28, 1797; she died July 10, 1835, leaving ten children. On Nov. 27, 1835, he married, second, Clarissa Carleton, daughter of William and Pamelia (Osgood) Carleton, born Feb. 7, 1813; died Nov. 17, 1873, aged sixty years and eight months. She also bore ten children, so that by two wives there were twenty as follows, viz.: By first wife:

1. Mary Witham Norton, born Oct. 22, 1813; married Willard Fisher.
2. John Kimball Norton, born Aug. 31, 1815; married Ruby Ann Hinckley.
3. Stephen Norton, born Feb. 25, 1818; died at sea May 17, 1845.
4. William Norton, born June 5, 1820; married, lived and died in Boston.
5. Mehitable Kimball Norton, born Oct. 23, 1822; died March 6, 1844.
6. Sophia Tenney Norton, born June 5, 1825; died April 20, 1849.
7. Priscilla Morse Norton, born April 19, 1828; died in Boston.
8. Frederick Henry Norton, born Aug. 29, 1829.
9. Catherine Norton, born May 19, 1832.
10. Lois Norton, born Oct. 7, 1834.

By second wife:

1. Harriet Webster Norton, born Nov. 13, 1836.
2. Hollis Wheeler Norton, born Nov. 19, 1837.
3. Clara Windship Norton, born Sept. 5, 1839; died Sept. 17, 1841.
4. Francis Warren Norton, born March 2, 1841.
5. Granville Norton, born March 18, 1843; died Sept. 2, 1843.
6. Clara W. Norton, born July 18, 1844; married Frederic S. Stevens.
7. Mehitable Witham Norton, born Aug. 27, 1846; died Sept. 21, 1850.
8. Stephen Kimball Norton, born March 31, 1849.
9. Ann Buck Norton, born Dec. 5, 1852.
10. John Albert Norton, born April 30, 1855.

Beside these John Havlin was an adopted son of the family.

Mrs. Clarissa Norton, the summer before her marriage to Capt. Norton, was the writer’s school teacher in the Falls district. William Norton was also his teacher one winter in the same district. John Havlin, the adopted son, was the writer’s schoolmate, shipmate and life-long friend.. Miss Priscilla Norton was the writer’s school friend at the academy, and at her death he wrote her obituary, so that in various ways the writer’s life was linked with this family.