Biographies

(Source: History of Bath and environs, Sagadahoc Co., Maine, 1607 - 1894
Ortland, Me.: Lakeside Press, printers, 1894 - 556 pgs.

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FRANCIS WINTER WEEKS, youngest son of John Weeks and Mary Pettengill, was born in Bath, February 26, 1844. He received a good business education, which was completed in the high school. His business career was commenced as purser on the steamship Montana, plying between San Francisco and Portland, Ore., in which employment he was engaged in 1865, 1866, and March, 1867. Subsequently, returning to the East, he entered the office of Franklin & Edwin Reed at Bath. For the period of fourteen years he was in the insurance business. In 1883 he formed a partnership with Frederick E. Reed in insurance and private banking. That connection having been dissolved, he was chosen treasurer of the People's Twenty-five Cent Savings Bank, in January, 1886, which position he is now filling, and he has been county treasurer since 1889. Mr. Weeks has been a prominent member of the Bath Board of Trade and its secretary many years. He served in the Common Council in 1879, 1880, 1885, 1891, 1892, and 1893, and was its president the latter year; also on the Board of Aldermen in 1886, 1887, and 1888. For twenty-five years Mr. Weeks has been a member of the Masonic Order, having joined Solar Lodge in 1868, and the Commandery in 1886. On September 12, 1876, he married Frances Almira Delano, daughter of Capt. Charles N. and Caroline Delano. She was born May 5, 1854. Their children are : Mary Eveleth, Caroline Beatrice, Charles Nichols, and Olive Metcalf Weeks.

WILLIAM L. WHITE was born October 10, 1825, in Cleveland, Ohio. His father was a native of Essex County, Mass., and was a lineal descendant of Peregrine White of old Plymouth Colony fame. Coming to Massachusetts when he was two years old, he came to Maine in 1851, and, with others, owned the stage line that ran between Bath and Rockland until the completion of the Knox & Lincoln Railroad, when the travel east from Bath was changed from stage to rail. On this road he was a conductor until 1885, when he became successor of C. A. Coombs as manager, and has been continued in that office since the road has become a part of the Maine Central system.

PARKER MERRILL WHITMORE.— His father, Dea. William H. Whitmore, was a prominent man of his day. He lived in Arrowsic, nearly opposite the City of Bath, where he had a farm which he cultivated, and, in the earlier portion of his life, followed the sea; later on he studied for the ministry and was licensed to preach but never ordained. He devoted the winter months to teaching school, in which avocation he was very successful. He was a deacon in the Congregational Church, at Phipsburg, for a long number of years, and was always known as a bright and active Christian, notable, ready, and earnest in prayer and exhortation. In person he was of a compactly and fully developed build, the perfect man, with a fresh, cheerful, and hearty presence, and liked by all who knew him. He was a great reader of the Bible and read it through twenty-eight times. His days were long in the land, having lived to the age of 89 years, departing this life October 13, 1877.
     P. M. Whitmore comes down in the line of the fifth and sixth generation. His grandfather was Andrew Whitmore, born October 2, 1760, and his grandmother was Lucy, only child of James and Mary Couilliard, born January 29, 1768, both living to a good old age, and both dying aged 99 years. His father was William H. Whitmore, of Arrowsic, born September 10, 1788, married, first, Charlotte, daughter of John and Susanna Parker, of Phipsburg, and second, Phebe, daughter of John Hayden, of Bowdoinham, having children by both wives. In early life Captain Whitmore followed the sea, but just after the Civil War he settled in Richmond and later in Bath, where he built several ships. Of late years he has occupied himself as a ship-broker, which business he is in at the present time. He was twice married but is now a widower. His first wife was Martha C. daughter of Samuel F. and Elizabeth G. Blair, of Richmond, Me., by whom he had one daughter, who only lived one year; his first wife dying, he married Mary E., a sister of his first wife, who died June 1, 1870; by his second wife he had four children, Eugenia Antoinette, Mary Parker, Harriet Louise, and Lizzie Parker.

WILLIAM EVARTS WHITMORE is the eldest son of William H. Whitmore by his second wife, Phebe Hayden, and was born at Arrowsic, November 22 1835. While young he entered upon a sea-faring life, became master of ships sailing out of the Port of Bath, and retiring from the sea, while in the prime of life, engaged in the coal trade in Bath, in which business he is now occupied.

ABEL E. WORK.— James Work, the great-grandfather of Capt. Abel E. Work, of Bath, was born in the City of Cork, near Dublin ; his great-grandmother was Elizabeth Work, but no relation of her husband. They came to America about 1722; resided thirteen years on Birch Island; in 1735 they moved to Topsham and settled on a farm of one hundred acres, bought of the Pejepscot Proprietors, on the Bay road; both died about 1760. They had two sons and three daughters.
     The grandfather, Ebenezer Work, was born on the passage from Europe, in 1722. He married Olive Sullivan, of Scituate, Mass., born m 1724. They lived and died on the old farm, he in December, 1826, and she in December, 1827. Their children were: John, James, David, William, Margaret, Jane, Mary, Elizabeth, Lydia, and Mary.
     The father, David Work, the third son of the above, was born in Topsham, in 1777 ; married Mary Eaton, of Topsham, 1801 or 1802; she was born in 1784 and died in 1876; he died in 1861, when nearly 84 years of age. They lived and died on the homestead farm. Their children were fifteen, of whom eleven lived to grow up: Oliver, Lucy, David, Joseph, Benjamin, Catharine, Charles, Susan, Lewis M., Harriet, Humphrey, Statira, Abel E. Those living are David, Susan, and Abel E. David lives on the homestead, and married Mrs. Hannah Griffin, of Topsham, in 1882.
Abel E. was brought up on his father's farm, and commenced going to sea in 1850, when sixteen years old, and became captain in 1862, commanding, successively, the brig, President Benson of Baltimore; bark, Halcyon, and ships, Bombay, Oregon, and Thomas M. Reed of Bath; never met with an accident in twenty-six years; only lost one man by sickness, and one lost overboard. On June 13, 1874, he married Augusta Fisher, who was born in Arrowsic, September 11, 1843, daughter of A. D. Fisher; has one child, Ruth Pearl, born in Bath, April 1, 1877.