♀Hannah McManus

Hannah McManus (1806 – 15 February 1899) was a woman of Brunswick, Maine, who lived to the age of 92. She was the second great-grand-aunt of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), the sister of Eleanor C. McManus (1809–1891), Nancy Jane’s second great-grandmother. A compiled Merryman genealogy of 1905 records that the two sisters married two Merryman brothers: Hannah married Captain Enos Merryman (born 1807), and Eleanor his brother John.

Her death register names her parents as Robert McManus and Ellenor Coombs. The 1905 genealogy gives her birth at Brunswick on 10 November 1806, and the register’s age at her death, 92 years, 3 months and 5 days, agrees with that day. One state death record gives her birth year as 1807. The register writes her married name as Hannah C. Merriman.

Marriage and family

The genealogy gives no date for her marriage, but her first child was born in 1829. It calls him Capt. Enos Merryman and says he died at New York City on 4 January 1851 of smallpox, while acting as keeper of a ship, and was buried at Greenwood Cemetery there. Hannah, then about forty-four, lived on as a widow for over forty-eight years. She died at Brunswick on 15 February 1899.

The same genealogy lists seven children for the couple, five sons and two daughters born between 1829 and 1846. It says of every one of the sons that he followed the sea, at least for a time, and the eldest, Robert Lincoln Merryman, became a successful captain.

Notes

No children are entered for Hannah and Enos on the family pages, but the 1905 genealogy lists seven: Robert Lincoln (born 1829), Harriet Knights, Walter, George, Enos, Fannie Quincy and John H. (born 1846). It prints Harriet’s birth twice, as 7 September 1831 and as 1 September 1832.

The genealogy gives Hannah’s death as November 1899; the Brunswick death register, which gives 15 February 1899, is followed here. Her birth year is 1806 in the genealogy and 1807 on one state record; the age in the register fits 1806.