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Darlene Gadley's
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Introduction
The surname of Spear (Speare, Spere, or Spears) is of ancient English origin, though the family seems never to have been very numerous.
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SPEAR: English: from Middle English spere ‘spear’, hence a nickname for a tall, thin person, or else for a skilled user of the hunting spear. In part it may also have been a metonymic occupational name for a maker of spears. -- Dictionary of American Family Names, Oxford University Press |
George Spear (Spears or Speare), b. 1612 in Sheffield or Yarmouth, England, emigrated to Massachusetts in 1642 and settled in Braintree. He was admitted a freeman May 29, 1644. For a time he lived at Dorchester, but in old age removed to New Dartmouth, now Pennaquid, Maine, and is said to have been killed by the Indians.
He had over 200 descendants fighting in the Revolutionary War, over 100 bearing his name with 16 of them officers. An equal number of descendants from the Spear daughters enlisted from Massachusetts alone, and fought to free a nation. (The Spear Family)
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Descendants of George Spear - First Generation
He married Mary Heath, who died at Braintree, Dec. 7, 1674. Their Children were:
- George, married, April 2, 1669, Mary, born Jan. 16, 1642-53, daughter of Samuel Deering of Braintree; children: Hannah, Mary, and Eleanor, given by some writers as of his parents.
- Sarah, born Jan. 3, 1644-45, married June 19, 1672, George Witty.
- Richard, had seven children, baptized April 11, 1698.
- Samuel, Oct. 15, 1652; died young.
- Ebenezer, Aug. 3, 1654; married Rachel Deering.
- Hannah, March 30, 1656-67; died 1668.
- Samuel, Jan. 16, 1658-59.
- Nathaniel, May 15, 1660; married Hannah Holman.
My Spear Family Lineage
- George Spear (b. 1619, England) married Mary Heath (2nd wife, b. 1627, England)
- Ebenezer Spear (b. 1680, MA) married Rachel Deering (b. 1659, Braintree, MA)
- Benjamin Spear (b. 1697/8, Braintree, MA) married Sarah Niles (b. 1697, Braintree, MA)
- Isaac Spear (b. 1728/29, Braintree, MA) married Elizabeth Fenton (2nd wife, b. 1729, Randolph, MA)
- Silas Spear (b. 1776, Braintree, MA) married Rebecca Thayer (b. 1780)
- Erastus Spear (b. 1809, Braintree, MA) married Maria Parnell (b. 1819, Mendon, MA)
- Marietta Josephine Spear (b. 1846, Rutland, MA) married Dennis Dexter Duhig (b. 1840, Lowell, MA)
- Katie Marie Duhig (b. 1867, Quesnel, British Columbia) married Thomas Phillip Armour (3rd husband, b. 1872, Ontario, Canada)
- Josephine Phoebe Armour (b. 1889, Waterville, WA) married Joseph Hume Sanders (b. 1885, Prince Edward Island, Canada)
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East to West - The Lure of Gold
Erastus Spear, his wife Maria Parnell, and their children left Massachusetts in 1852 to join many others in California for the gold rush. Unknown circumstances broke the family apart, causing Erastus and Maria to divorce. According to the 1860 Oregon census, Maria was working in the Portland Oregon area as a nurse. In 1864 she married John A Tomlinson.
Marietta Josephine Spear, daughter of Erastus and Maria, moved to Vancouver, British Columbia, in the early 1860's to work for a family friend as a seamstress -- she was only 17 at the time. My grandmother (Josephine Phoebe Armour) told me a handsome young man came into Marietta’s seamstress shop one day to have a shirt made and by the time the shirt was finished they were in love.
Not long after, Marietta Josephine, still shy of her 18th birthday, married Dennis Dexter Duhig in 1864 in Victoria, after which they settled in Quesnel, British Columbia (also known as Quesnelmouth). Dennis had lived in Barkerville, British Columbia, since 1862 and was in the hotel and brewing business. The Quesnel-Barkerville area is also called The Cariboo, which was at the time a wild country with few white women -- gold was discovered on the Fraser River in 1858, leading to the 2nd major gold rush on the West Coast, The Cariboo Gold Rush. The family line thus followed the lure of gold westward, first to California for the California Gold Rush in the 1850s and then to British Columbia for the Cariboo Gold Rush in the 1860s.
Marietta Josephine Spear was proud of her Spear heritage and never forgot her Massachusetts roots. My grandmother said her grandmother (called "Little Grandma" by the family) was always a lady and passed those attributes on to her granddaughters.
Dennis and Marietta’s first two children died, one at birth and the other in infancy. A daughter, Katie Marie Duhig, however, was born to them in Quesnel in 1867. Marietta Josephine, however, was concerned about having additional children in the wilds of the Cariboo and insisted the family move to the Ventura area of California, where she had family. Their second daughter, Ida Helena (Lena), was born in San Francisco in 1869, and a son, Frederick Dexter, was born to them in California in 1871. The death of Dennis Duhig's brother then prompted the family to return to Quesnel, British Columbia.
GEDCOM Files (HTML format)
Because of size constraints, the GEDCOM's are only being put up in HTML format -- if intersted in a GEDCOM, please E-MAIL me at the address at the bottom of this page.
My Spear Family GEDCOM
- Spear GEDCOM -- Surnames include: Spear, Parnell, Richardson, Mann, and Heath from Massachusetts dating back to the early 1600's.
Related Surname GEDCOMs
- Duhig GEDCOM -- Surnames include: Duhig, Bartrim, Craig, and Yates from Cork County - Ireland, Lowell - MA, and British Columbia.
- Sanders GEDCOM -- Surnames include: Sanders, Compton, and Hume from England, New York, New Jersey, and New Brunswick & Prince Edward Island - Canada.
- Armour GEDCOM -- Surnames include: Primarily Armour, from Scotland, Ireland, Ontario - Canada, and Washington state. Other surnames with at least several entries include: Garrett, Hammell, Johnston, Marshall, and Pattison.
Picture Galleries
Follow these links to see some of the pictures I've been able to gather during my genealogical researches (click on thumbnails to see full images):
- Armour - Sanders Pictures
- Duhig - Bartrim Pictures
- Images of the Barkerville Gold Rush from the BC Archives (external site)
Spear Family Resources
Following are genealogical and historical resources related to the Spear family:
- The Spear Family Genealogical Forum
- George Spear from Peter's House of Blood from RootsWeb.com.
- The Spear Family Genealogical Forum
- What we know about the Spear Family from Ancestry.com.
- Braintree (town), Massachusetts - from Wikipedia.
- African American Family History Resources from the New England Historic Genealogical Society. See the "Spear Manuscripts" section, for information about Cesar and Chloe Spear, husband and wife -- Cesar had been a slave to a Nathan Spear until slavery was outlawed in Massachusetts in 1787.
- The Cariboo Gold Rush
- Genealogy and Historical Record links for the Cariboo & Chilcotin Regions
- Barkerville Gold Rush Town - Time Travel in the Cariboo
- The Gold Rush in British Columbia & the Yukon
- Because of Gold by Branwen Patenaude
All Surnames Genealogy Resources
Due to the spamming of my guestbook (the latest spam tactic, I take it), I've had to remove my guestbook from this site. Hopefully, I will have a new guestbook up before too long, which will allow me to moderate any messages posted to it.
Until then, you can still view My Old Guestbook
Darlene Gadley
E-Mail: rgadley@pacbell.net
Last Updated: January 26, 2005
Photo at top: Josephine Armour, Katie Duhig Craig Armour, and Philip Armour (1907)
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