Thursday, November 21, 2013

Treasure Chest Thursday - Post 190: 1874 Marriage Certificate of Frank Seaver and Hattie Hildreth

It's Treasure Chest Thursday - time to look in my digital image files to see what treasures I can find for my family history and genealogy musings.

The treasure today is the 1874 marriage certificate for my great-grandparents, Frank Walton Seaver and Hattie Louisa Hildreth in Keene, Cheshire County, New Hampshire:




The transcription of this document is (with the groom and bride information not in columns, typed in information underlined, and handwritten information in italics):


State of New Hampshire
CERTIFIED ABSTRACT OF A CERTIFICATE OF MARRIAGE
00035872                                                                       FILE #   273

GROOM

FULL NAME                                            FRANK W SEAVER
AGE                                                          0
RESIDENCE                                              LEOMINSTER, MASSACHUSETTS
MARITAL STATUS
NO. OF THIS MARRIAGE                          0
BIRTHPLACE
PLACE MARRIAGE INTENTIONS FILED  KEENE
PLACE OF MARRIAGE                              KEENE
FILE DATE                                                 ++ SEE BELOW **

BRIDE

FULL NAME                                              HATTIE L. HILDRETH
AGE                                                           0
RESIDENCE                                              LEOMINSTER, MASSACHUSETTS
MARITAL STATUS                      
NO. OF THIS MARRIAGE                         0
BIRTHPLACE
DATE OF MARRIAGE                               DECEMBER 16, 1874
MARRIAGE PERFORMED BY                   REV. G.W. BROWN

** Filed in chronological order with records from 1872 to 1876.

I HEREBY CERTIFY THAT THIS IS A TRUE ABSTRACT ISSUED FROM THE OFFICIAL RECORDS ON FILE AT THIS OFFICE.

ATTEST:  Patricia Cutler            STATE/LOCAL REGISTRAR    Charles E. Sirc
                                                                                                  CHARLES E. SIRC
                                                                                                  STATE REGISTRAR

DATE ISSUED:  SEPTEMBER 13, 1994   STATE /CITY/TOWN OF:  KEENE

The source citation for this record, crafted using the Marriage Records (loose, licenses and bonds) source template in RootsMagic (based on EE 9.5):

Keene, New Hampshire, Abstract of a Certificate of Marriage, File #273, Frank W. Seaver and Hattie L. Hildreth, 16 December 1874 (abstracted 13 September 1994); Keene [N.H.] Town/City Clerk's Office, Keene, N.H.

Since this certificate was created 120 years after the marriage event, it is an official certified record of the marriage.  It is a Derivative Source, with Primary Information and Direct Evidence as to the Marriage date and place.

Note that there are no ages given on the certificate.  Either the town clerk didn't ask for it, didn't write it down, or it wasn't required (really?).

Hattie Hildreth was age 17 at the time of this marriage, and Frank was 22, and they were neighbors in Leominster, Massachusetts.  They probably "eloped" to Keene (which is about 45 miles away).  I'm not aware of any  close family members of either Frank or Hattie who resided in or near Keene.  Perhaps one of their friends went with them or referred them to a family member.

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2013/11/treasure-chest-thursday-post-190-1874.html

Copyright (c) 2013, Randall J. Seaver


5 comments:

Geolover said...

Hmmm, 45 miles is close to an all-day trip by horseback. How did they get there? Borrow a buggy? Was there a stage? Did they leave a day or two before the marriage was celebrated? Where did they stay? Eat?

Michigan Girl said...

Randy - my husband's family, the Hall's, were early settlers and founders in Keene, NH. We visited there 3 years ago. It's a wonderful old town and has a couple of very old cemeteries.
I have a large book, History of Keene, New Hampshire by S. G. Griffin. I checked the index and found no mention of Seaver, Hildreth or Rev. Brown.
Interesting that they would go there to be married.

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

Randy - just ran across this post in a redirect from Google+.

You probably already knew this by now, but I thought I would pass along that Rev. Geo. W Brown was the pastor of the Episcopal Church, according to the 1877 Keene City Directory at Ancestry.

http://interactive.ancestry.com/8775/NH-Keene-NH-1877-0001100?backurl=http%3a%2f%2fsearch.ancestry.com%2fsearch%2fdb.aspx%3fdbid%3d8775%26path%3d&ssrc=&backlabel=ReturnBrowsing#?imageId=NH-Keene-NH-1877-0040660

Also- the Episcopal Church, was named St. James, and located on West Street.

http://interactive.ancestry.com/8775/NH-Keene-NH-1877-0001100?backurl=http%3a%2f%2fsearch.ancestry.com%2fsearch%2fdb.aspx%3fdbid%3d8775%26path%3d&ssrc=&backlabel=ReturnBrowsing#?imageId=NH-Keene-NH-1877-0026100

I don't get out there very often, but I can try to remember to take a photo next time I'm in the area. A very, pretty, gray stone church, right off the central street in Keene.

Unknown said...

and the Keene Library has an album up on Flickr, showing churches in the area. There is a photo of St. James, dated to about 1870, which can be seen at

https://www.flickr.com/photos/keenepubliclibrary/4403508285/in/set-72157605664376176/