Overcoming the Stigma of an Illegitimate Birth in Aroostook County

Orin and his father, Fred W. Russell.

Fort Fairfield’s Orin Russell, born in 1898, used to tell us grandchildren about his three half-sisters hiding him inside one of their mother’s flour bins in the baking pantry—bins with doors that tipped outward. It was easy to slide a little fellow into an empty bin where he couldn’t get out on his own, and any sounds he made were muffled by the wood.

The girls would hide him when the postman came with the mail or when neighbors visited. His sisters didn’t want anyone to steal him away.

Why Hide?

Flour bins in a 1940s farm kitchen.

Perhaps the girls got that idea from their stepfather, Orin’s dad. Fred W. Russell had good reason to know all about being hidden in odd places so his presence was not discovered. It took me a long time to find out why, but eventually the truth came out.

Orin’s grandparents were John Russell Jr. and Betsy Keegan, but Orin told me that he and his father weren’t related to any of the other Russells living next to him on the Russell Road in Fort Fairfield, Maine.

I thought that was a bit odd, so sometime after Orin’s death in 1974, I asked his remaining half-sister, Fern Lundy Spear, if Fred W. Russell had had any siblings. 

“Why of course he did,” she said. “He came from a large family. I have his obituary at home and I’ll copy out their names for you.”

Soon I had several pages of names written in Fern’s large, cursive hand. But as adults the siblings had all moved elsewhere—except for Fred. So maybe what Orin had told me was really true: he and his dad weren’t related to his Russell neighbors.

Then one day I bumped into a local genealogist who was married to a Fort Russell. I asked her about Fred. She smiled slightly and cleared her throat.

“Fred was related to half the town,” she finally chuckled. “All the Russells in Fort go back to the first settlers, Michael and Phoebe Russell, who came here in the 1820s and raised a big family.

“John was definitely Fred’s father. Betsy, however, couldn’t have been his natural mother as she gave birth to a daughter just before Fred was born…there wasn’t enough months between them. But Betsy raised him, so as far as I’m concerned, she earned the right to be called his mother.”

Later, that lady and another Russell talked it over and decided I was old enough (over 40) to know the truth. They sent me a copy of a letter written in the early 1900s by the daughter of James Russell— Fred’s half-brother and the only legitimate son of John and Betsy. The daughter described events that a close relative had told her about Fred.

It seems John and Betsy had employed a “maid” around 1869 and 1870, as was common with families who needed extra help. The maid became pregnant with Fred, and John was the father.

Betsy and John’s daughter Ada was born in late November, 1869, and Fred was born on April 10, 1870. 

Sometime after Fred’s birth, the “maid” came back to the Russell household to ask Betsy if she would bring Fred up. Betsy asked the local priest and he said she had to do it. She raised Fred and, at some point, he was considered a Russell, the son of John and Betsy.

According to the Russell genealogists, Fred had darker skin and hair than the other Russells in Fort, and his Russell neighbors knew or suspected he wasn’t Betsy’s child. There were two Fred Russells in town back then: one with red hair who was nicknamed Red Fred, and Fred W., with his dark hair, was called Black Fred.

But that didn’t stop Black Fred, as an adult, from becoming “a prominent citizen.” After his death in 1933, the local newspaper stated that he was “a very quiet and modest man, most neighborly and kind.” He had served on the town’s budget committee several times and was elected a town selectman.

“Fred turned out to be a very fine man,” James’ granddaughter, Ruth, later told me. “Better than my grandfather.” Fred’s sisters “were so ashamed of the whole affair that they never visited him when they visited Fort Fairfield…He felt badly that they didn’t go to see him.”

James, who eventually moved to California, was married at one time to two women in two different parts of the country.

Still, I was curious about Fred’s birth mother.

“You’ll never find out who his real mother was,” one Russell warned me. “She no doubt was sent away, like most unwed mothers, to work downstate in one of the mills or….who knows what. Fred was lucky he was taken in and not left out in the streets.”

What Life Was Like…

In the 1800s, a child was considered illegitimate when the mother and father weren’t married to each other at the time of the birth. The baby was also called natural born, bastard, or misbegotten. 

Having such an offspring was deemed shameful, a social and public health problem. The unmarried mother usually had only domestic work or other unskilled labor for survival options. The child’s father was usually left unnamed, and the youngster would take on the mother’s surname. Often the child was prevented from inheriting property.

Eventually I was able to examine copies of the handwritten 1870 federal census for Fort Fairfield to see, if by chance, the original “maid” had been counted in John Jr.’s household.

Federal census takers back then were called assistant marshals and weren’t supposed to divulge information they recorded. But it was not unheard of for a marshal to convey juicy tidbits to his friends.

Who Was at the Door?

The John Russell Jr. family may have been cautious and alarmed when Assistant Marshal Asa Townsend, a fellow farmer in town, came knocking on their door. In addition to Asa possibly telling others about their family situation, there was also the chance that whatever they said could be used against them. The federal government had instructed the marshals that if they asked for census information—and a family member refused or gave false information—that person could be penalized.

In every household visited, Asa had an orderly process he was to use to obtained information. He was only to ask census questions to the head of the family. After he had written everything down, he would read that information back to make sure everything was accurate.

Betsy Keegan Russell.

Asa carried with him several large sheets of lined paper to fill in the names of each household member. At each house, he first wrote the name of the father or head of the family, his age, place of birth, occupation, and the value of his real estate and personal estate. The mother’s information went on the second line, and each child, oldest to youngest, after that. Finally, any lodgers, servants, or laborers were recorded.

In every other household, Asa did this exact method. Except for the John Russell house, visited on June 3.

John, 26, was listed on the first line as the head of the family. The second line, however, recorded his eldest child, Lucy, 6; then Mary, 4, and Sarah, 2. Only after Sarah’s line was their mother, Elizabeth (Betsy), 26, listed. Lastly, “Angelia Panaur, 20, domestic service.”

Where was Ada, born in late November of the previous year? Was Fred still there, too? Were one or both hidden away? And why did Asa alter the order of the family members? Did he decide not to press John for more accurate information? Was he being a good neighbor and keeping his nose out of it?

The servant listed in John and Betsy’s household “couldn’t have been Fred’s mother,” my genealogist friend argued. “As soon as Betsy found out about her pregnancy, that girl would have been out the door. Fred wouldn’t have been born there.”

That still didn’t explain why Asa changed his order of census counting at the Russell farm.

The Missing Maid

I dug deeper to find out who this Angelia Panaur really was. She was supposedly born in Maine, but no such Panaur family existed in Maine. I traced 1850, 1860, and other 1870 census from Fort Fairfield and neighboring towns, discovering that John’s wife, the former Betsy Keegan, was from the mostly French town of Van Buren, about 30 miles north of Fort Fairfield. Betsy’s mother, Lucy Parent, had a sister, Zoe, who was married to Pierre Parent (from a totally different Parent line) and gave birth to a daughter, Angele, in 1850. No other Angele born in the area fit as well as Zoe’s daughter to the description of Angelia Panaur. If she was indeed Zoe’s daughter, she and Betsy would have been first cousins. During that era it was typical for families to employ poorer relatives as servants.

Betsy’s younger brother, Charles Keegan, practiced law in the St. John Valley and later was elected several times to the state House of Representatives. Betsy, I suspect, also had some of those family smarts. And as a devote Catholic, she would have practiced the rules and moral standards of the Church.

Perhaps Angele and her mistress were busy hiding the two babies before they appeared before the assistant marshal. And perhaps Betsy had not thrown out her cousin—her blood relative—when learning of the child she was carrying. Or did Betsy even know the child was coming until Angele went into labor? Such things could have happened, especially if Angele was built like Betsy—small-boned and petite—and wore the looser clothing of a farm servant.

Was there another plan involving the babies? Did Betsy want to hide them until enough months had gone by to claim Fred as her own? Did the census visit change that?

Sometimes in the 19th Century, the illegitimate child would be given up by the mother and raised by relatives, without the benefit of any legal papers. Angele Parent’s mother died in 1865, and only her father and siblings ran their Van Buren farm in 1870. Her elderly, widowed father would not be expected to raise Fred as his own son.

Also back then, it was not unheard of for a female servant to become pregnant by her employer. In 1869, Betsy was pregnant with her fourth daughter, and there were no other adults supposedly living on the farm other than Angele and John Jr.

There was one stickler, however, to the argument that Angelia Panaur was Angele Parent of Van Buren. Assistant Marshal Almon Richard, a farmer conducting the census for Van Buren, recorded Angele Parent as living in her father’s household in 1870.

That census was taken on June 28—twenty-five days after Asa had visited the Russell home. A real possibility was that Angele and her baby left the Russell residence sometime in June and were settled in her father’s house by the end of that month. Perhaps the original plan was for Angele and Fred to return to her father’s place once Fred was old enough—or quiet enough—to be transported by wagon or carriage. Or maybe after Asa had been to their farm, Betsy and John wanted Angele and her son to leave immediately before others became suspicious.

To cover her tracks, Angele or her father gave a slightly different name to the Van Buren census taker: Angelique. And little Fred, again, was not mentioned.

Time passed and in the early months of 1872, the new priest at St. Bruno’s Catholic Church in Van Buren conducted a parish census. Pierre Parent’s household on the Main Road was duly recorded.

Angele used her legal birth name, and she and eight siblings were still living at home. The priest recorded Hilaire Cyr, 50, of Fredericton, N.B., also living at Pierre’s residence. Some would assume he was there as a farm laborer.

Lastly, the priest wrote: “Alfred, illegitimate son of Angele.”

The Odd Couple

Sometime between that May and the autumn months, Angele and Hiliare were married. In October of that year, their daughter Helene was born.

Sometimes 19th Century families, when faced with an unmarried, pregnant daughter, arranged for a man outside of the family to marry the girl, with some monetary or other incentive to keep quiet. Was this the reason Hiliare was at Pierre’s home, even though Angele had already given birth to Fred? Did the priest suggest this arrangement? Or was marriage not considered until Angele was again pregnant?

For years as an adult, Fred listed his birthday as May, 1872, but his tombstone recorded his actual 1870 birth date. Was 1872 used by Angele to legitimize his birth, with Hiliare as his father? Or was that date in connection with Angele’s visit to Betsy, asking her to raise Fred?

It’s been assumed that Fred was quite young when Angele gave him to Betsy. Perhaps Hiliare would not marry Angele until Fred’s situation was dealt with. Or perhaps he could not financially take care of him.

On June 18, 1880, another assistant marshal appeared at the John Russell residence. Only this time the order of the family was listed correctly. John’s only legitimate son, James, had been born, Ada, 10, was finally included with her siblings, and a male Parent cousin was the servant (Betsy made sure of that). But where was Fred?

The Caribou Connection

In the neighboring town of Caribou, another assistant marshal recorded on July 1 the family of Eli Cyr, a farm laborer. His family lived between the farms of Zadoc Forbes and John McLaughlin on the Fort Fairfield Road. Eli, about 58, was there with his wife, Perian, 30, and their three children: Fred, 9; Ellen, 7; and Mary, 4.

The French name Helene is pronounced like “Ellen.” The “h” is silent. And Ellen Cyr was the same age as Angele and Hiliare’s Helene. The couple had a second daughter, Marie, born in Van Buren in 1876. “Mary” is the English form of Marie. “Eli” was easier to say than Hiliare, and as for Perian…there’s no record of that name anywhere else. 

Early spring between the former Forbes and McLaughlin farms, Fort Fairfield Road, Caribou.

Angele had a knack for variations on her name, so I wouldn’t be surprised if that was her. I haven’t found anyone else who was ever named “Perian.” Possibly still uneasy with her two different names in the 1870 census, Angele may have felt she needed another one in 1880 to lessen the possibility of authorities tracking her down.

Was Fred visiting his natural mother in Caribou when the census taker came? Or was this planned so he would not be counted with the Russells, lessening any future claims to his natural father’s estate? A third possibility is that he had been living with Angele and Eli all along. Did something happen to Eli after the 1880 census—an injury, illness, or death—that prevented Angele from being able to care for her son?

Ada Russell Thomas, one of Fred’s nine Russell half-sisters.

The 1890 federal census was destroyed by fire, so only marriage and death records give hints as to what happened next. We know that Ellen (Helene) Cyr married in 1891, although there’s no official record, just what the couple told the census taker in 1900.

Betsy died in 1894, and Angele and Eli were perhaps dead by then, too. No record of the Cyrs' deaths remains and no cemetery documentation. Sometimes older relatives were buried in the back of a farm. If Angele and Eli were of the poorer class, this may also have been the case. After living in Caribou, the couple might have moved back to Van Buren near Grand Isle, where the Parent family farm was still in operation.

Finally Some Facts

Also in 1894, Angele’s youngest daughter married in Caribou, and a marriage document exists. She had been working as a domestic, and her husband was a farm laborer. Both Mary’s parents were “now dead,” she confirmed, and her father had been a shoemaker in his later years. Both her parents were residents of Grand Isle, and Mary was born there. (She was actually born in Van Buren.) And she listed her mother, Angele, as Sarah Parent. At least Mary got the “Parent” right.

One of Angele’s brothers was a farmer in Caribou that decade, and his farm was not far from where Fred Russell, in 1895, was living on Water Street. According to the Caribou directory, Fred was working as a laborer, perhaps for his Parent uncle or for someone else in the Caribou area.

I suspect he did not hang around the Russells too long after Betsy’s death in 1894, if he didn’t leave before then. By 1895 he was 25 years old…or 23 if you count his birth from 1872. For awhile he called himself Fred A. Russell (perhaps a nod to his original French name of Alfred), and then Fred Walter Russell. Perhaps, like his natural mother, he liked to change it now and then.

Nettie’s oldest daughter, Jenny Lundy.

In 1897, Fred married Nettie Barker Lundy, a young widow who owned a farm on the Russell Road in Fort Fairfield, not far from the John Russell Jr. place where he supposedly grew up. Nettie’s first husband, Thomas Lundy, was fatally injured from an accident with an ax, but he lingered for two years before dying in 1895, leaving behind Nettie with three young daughters. Thomas’ mother was a Russell, and Fred and Thomas were cousins.

Fred turned the mortgaged farm into a successful one, and Nettie gave birth to their only son, Orin, who was doted on by his three half-sisters and hidden by them in flour bins.

John Jr. died in 1916. His obituary stated that James was his only son. Was it that even then, John did not accept Fred as his son? Or did another member of John and Betsy’s family see to it that Fred’s name was not included?

Does History Always Repeat?

Life went on, and the new century did not hold onto former grudges, quite so much, to anyone born out of wedlock. Fred was considered a Russell in the community, and his son, Orin, grew up tall and handsome.

Fern Lundy Spear and daughter Helen.

Orin’s surviving half-sister, Fern, married Forest Spear, another farmer, on Christmas Day in 1912.

Forest had a younger sister, Amy, who was attending the teacher’s college in nearby Presque Isle around 1920. Her mother had died young, and her closest sister, Willa, died in 1922 after a two-year battle with tuberculosis. Her remaining sister, Ruby, a nurse, had given birth to a daughter in 1913 and then divorced and moved back home with Amy and their father, a bank president, in the neighboring town of Limestone.

Perhaps after Willa’s death, Amy and Orin had begun dating. Eventually, Orin’s father may have realized that the youngsters were in a family way. But this time, Orin was single, and marriage was the way out of another illegitimate birth.

Amy and Orin married discretely in Houlton, 50 miles south of Fort, and then moved into the second floor of Fred and Nettie’s farmhouse. Seven months later, in 1924, another Fred was born as a full-term baby—in Limestone—where Amy was visiting her father.

Orin Russell in front of the Russell Road farm his father, Fred W., formerly owned.

The 1930 census taker, when visiting the Fred Russell residence, recorded Fred W. as the head, Nettie as his wife, and Orin, their son.  Amy was recorded as “daughter” not daughter-in-law, which was unusual. Fred’s grandson, Fred Forest, and his younger brother, Garth, were also noted.

Fred W. would have been the one responsible for telling the census taker what Amy’s relationship was to him. It would seem that family was family to Fred, no matter how it happened.

Amy Spear Russell.

Fred’s half-sister, Ada, the other Russell baby hidden during the 1870 census, died in early 1933. Her obituary listed both her brothers’ names, as well as her many sisters. Finally some of Fred’s Russell siblings had accepted him.

Amy and Orin’s oldest son didn’t have to grow up with the same stigma as his Grandfather Russell did. Still, some relatives may have considered Amy as not quite up to the moral standard of the early 1920s because of her pre-marriage pregnancy.

Fred W., however, treated Amy not just as a daughter-in-law but as if she were his very own—the very way he would have wished to have been treated by his own family, so many years before.