Biographical Sketches of Representative Citizens of the State of Maine (1903), p. 194: 'The Oaks of Garland'.

Word-for-word transcription (spellings kept; uncertain letters in brackets).

He married first before 1654, and his wife, whose Christian name was Sarah, died in 1702. She was the

mother of all his children. His second wife, Mary, died in 1727. Samuel^3 Allen was born in Sudbury,

Mass., April 8, 1658. He married first, January 4, 1684, Jane Ross. The Christian name of his second

wife was Abigail. Ephraim^4 Allen was born in Westboro, Mass., about 1691, and died February 15, 1776.

On November 28, 1716, he married Susanna Beacon, who was born October 2, 1695. Their daughter,

Susanna^5 Allen, survived her first husband, John^2 Oak, and in 1754 married John Butler, of

Shrewsbury, Mass. In 1766 they went to Winchester, N.H., where she died in 1814.

Nathaniel^3 Oak, born in Westboro, Mass., May 16, 1751, died in Exeter, Me., March 15, 1840. He was but

an infant when his father died, and he was brought up in Shrewsbury, Mass., until quite a large boy.

Going then to Bolton, Mass., he passed several years at the home of his uncle Nathaniel, and also lived

for a while with some cousins in Winchendon. To the Lexington alarm, April, 1775, he quickly responded,

and served twelve days in a company of minute-men raised by his father-in-law, Captain Benjamin Hastings,

in Bolton. From 1776 to 1790 he lived in Winchester, N.H., where most of his children were born. In 1790

he removed to Chelsea, Vt., living there until 1839, when he went to Exeter, Me., to make his home with

his youngest son. There, on a Sunday in 1840, he expired suddenly in church. He was a man of robust

physique and of a jovial temperament, and was well known and liked by everybody. He married first,

June 2, 1773, Susanna Hastings, and second, Mrs. Elizabeth Gates. Susanna Hastings, his first wife, was

born in 1748, a daughter of Captain Benjamin Hastings, of Bolton, Mass.

Captain Hastings was born before 1723, but nothing is known of his parents, a fact that is rather

strange considering his prominence. He had a distinguished record in the Revolutionary War and in the

French and Indian War. In 1755 and 1756 he served for forty weeks and three days as an Ensign in the

company of Captain Joseph Whitcomb, and in 1759 went on the expedition to Crown Point as Captain of a

company in the regiment of Colonel Abijah Willard.

[col. 2]

He was Captain of the company of Bolton minute-men that marched to Lexington, April 19, 1775; and on

April 27, 1775, he re-enlisted. In 1780 he was appointed to procure recruits for the Continental army.

He held various local offices, and was quite influential as a citizen. The date of his death is unknown.

Captain Hastings married May 12, 1743, in Watertown, Abigail Sawtelle, who was born April 12, 1719. Her

father, Richard Sawtelle, who married Abigail Whitney, was born in Shirley, Mass., April 21, 1689, and

died in 1760. He was a son of Enoch and Susanna (Randall) Sawtelle and grandson of Richard and Elizabeth

Sawtelle. Richard Sawtelle emigrated from England to America at an early day, and served in King

Philip's War.

Benjamin Hastings^4 Oak was the eldest of nine children. Born in Winchester, N.H., March 3, 1776, he

died April 26, 1842, in Garland, Me. On going to Vermont at the age of fourteen years, he was a boy of

remarkable strength; but during an athletic contest with older people, held in a hayfield for charitable

purposes, he injured himself, and was never well again. He served as musician in the United States army

for a year or two, in 1799 being in the Second Regiment of Heavy Artillery, stationed at New London,

Conn. Leaving the service, he was engaged in mercantile pursuits, first as a clerk and later on his own

account. From 1807 until 1812 he was Town Clerk of Chelsea, Vt., and in 1810 he represented that town in

the State Legislature. From 1812 until 1826 he was proprietor of a hotel in Boscawen, N.H., the

birthplace of most of his children. In 1826 he went to Exeter, Me., and in 1830 he purchased a farm in

Garland, Me., where he spent the remaining twelve years of his life. On December 23, 1804, at Chelsea,

Vt., he married Hannah Smith, who was born in 1779 in Walpole, N.H., and died in 1853 in Garland, Me.

She was a daughter of Benjamin and Hannah Smith. Her father was born before 1759, and died after 1826.

The children of Benjamin^4 Hastings and Hannah (Smith) Oak were: Susanna Hastings^5 Oak, Genett^5 Oak,

Henry Laurens^5 Oak, Lyndon^5 Oak, Lorenzo^5 Oak, Lebbeus^5 Oak, and Edson Lang^5 Oak. Susanna Hastings^5

Oak, born in

Excerpt: the article 'The Oaks of Garland' only (the other column of the page is a different sketch); every date was re-read against the page image. [sic] marks indicate the transcriber's own notation.