♂William Dennett

William Dennett (22 July 1803 – 13 February 1888) was a grocer of Topsham, Maine. He was the great-great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), through his daughter Francis E. Dennett (1846–1925), her daughter Anna Walker Merryman (1869–1942) and her son Kenneth Blanchard (1897–1975).

Early life

He was born at Hollis in York County, Maine, the son of John Dennet and his wife Jane. The birth is known from a delayed return of Hollis births filed with the Maine State Archives, which copies the Hollis town book’s entry for the family and lists nine children of the couple born between 1793 and 1813: Sarah, Phebe, Susanny, Nicholas, Olief, William, Daniel, John and Joseph. William was the sixth, and his sister Phebe died on 10 July 1812.

The return gives the mother only as Jane Dennet, her married name. A family chart compiled in 1994 names her as Jane Mallana, and a FamilySearch profile calls her Jane Mehanna Woodward and makes the father John Fabyan Dennett (1769–1834); neither claim is backed by a record.

Marriage and family

On 19 September 1835 William Dennett and Miss Eliza S. Wilson, both of Topsham, entered their intention of marriage in the Topsham town book, and the certificate was issued on 5 October. They married at Topsham about October 1835; the marriage itself is not recorded. Eliza Stone Wilson (1812–1881), born at Topsham, was the daughter of Johnson Wilson and Hannah Walker. An earlier family chart had taken her middle name Stone to be a previous married name; the town book, which calls her “Miss”, shows that it was not. In 1850 her widowed mother Hannah, aged seventy, was living in the Dennett household.

The census of 1850 records him as a grocery store owner at Topsham, and he was still living there in 1860 and 1880. Their daughter Francis Eliza Dennett was born at Topsham in 1846 and married William Simpson Merryman of Brunswick on 3 November 1867.

Death

He died at Topsham on 13 February 1888 and was buried in Riverview Cemetery there. Two newspapers gave the death as 14 February, and the Bangor Daily Commercial called him “one of Topsham’s oldest citizens”. A memorial compilation on the Merryman family, published in 1905, records him as William W. Dennett, husband of Eliza S., and left her surname blank; the town book supplies it.

His estate was administered in 1888. On 3 April 1888 the Court of Probate at Bath divided its $32,634.21 equally among his three children: Valeria G. McDonnell, Fannie E. Merryman and Alfred W. Dennett, $10,878.07 each.