The McLintock Line

Ken McLintock was the younger of two brothers. The elder brother, Thomas Fredrick McLintock, was born September 28, 1912. But the two brothers were preceded - and predeceased - by a sister who died in infancy. Three sepia photographs in the family scrapbook show a laughing baby girl in a bonnet. She is Baby Jean (1909-1910).

My father left a written remembrance of his mother. Edith Cavannaugh (1880-1953) was a singer from Savannah, Georgia, who moved to New York to continue her musical education. Edith was the daughter of Augusta Young and John Henry Cavannaugh.

Frederick Seybel McLintock, the father of Kenneth and Thomas, was the son of Archibald (Jr.) McLintock and Sophia Louise Seybel. Arch's father, Archibald Sr., immigrated from Scotland around 1850, after marrying Hannah Boag in Dumbartonshire, Scotland, January 1, 1847. This first generation of American McLintocks settled in New York. A relative in the New York area writes:

Archibald Sr. and Hannah had three sons: Archibald Jr., Robert, and David. Archibald Sr. was quite successful, owning a major partnership in a general merchandise store (and likely other businesses as well) in Manhattan, and son David owning one in Brooklyn, NY.

Robert D. McLintock's wife's name was Elizabeth; David Boag (b. January 22, 1850; d. September 24, 1901) was married twice, first to Mary Montgomery and then to Helen Amy Bligh.

Sophia Louise Seybel was born February 9, 1853 and lived at 107 Eighth Avenue, New York. She was a public school teacher until she married Archibald McLintock on February 1, 1877. She and her two brothers (Fredrick William and Daniel Edward) were raised in a three-story brick house. Their parents died in 1875 from pneumonia.

The parents of Sophia, Daniel, and Frederick Seybel were Frederick Seybel (Sr.) and Sophia Voeltgel. The senior Frederick Seybel and Sophia Voeltgel were married on May 9, 1852. Frederick Sr. was the fifth child of Jacob Seybel, Jr., born April 1, 1808. He immigrated in 1863.

Jacob Seybel Sr. was born April 11, 1779 at Bischweiler, Alsace-Lorraine. He married Anna Marie Joerger in 1806. Their children were Jacob Jr., William, Daniel, Anna Marie, Elizabeth, Magdalina, and Louise.

My Mother's Theology

Stella's first ambition - which lasted until age 12 - was to become a missionary. She had been taught that there were millions of poor souls in Africa and India and China who knew nothing of Christianity and who were in peril of Hell if they were not saved. Clearly someone needed to save them.

But the apparent injustice of condemning all these people troubled Stella, and she found it hard to believe that a compassionate God would send people to Hell for no fault of their own. Eventually some teacher of pastor confided that the infidels who had never heard the teachings of Christianity were in no danger; it was only those who had been offered salvation, and knowingly rejected it, who would face damnation.

Well, if that was the case, she reasoned, then the missionaries ought to leave well enough alone! Clearly they were doing more harm than good. And so, on the page in the family album dating from 1940-1941 ("Grade 7, Age 12, Mrs. Severin"), my mother notes:

This was the year I learned heathens who had not heard of Christ weren't necessarily going to hell. End of missionary.

The Church Memory Book

Among my mother's effects is an autograph book, a small blue volume carrying the title "My Church Memory Book". The first inscription (on the page headed "My Pastor") is from the Rev. Frederick P. Moffatt of Bath, Maine, with the Scriptural citation Galatians 2:20: "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me."

Most of the signatures are dated around March 18 - 21, 1942. Stella would have been about 12 1/2 years old. Some of the entries carry humorous or pithy messages:

Once you had a parrot but you killed it in a rage.
For every time your boyfriend came the darn thing told your age.
- Beverly Rogers, Corliss Street

Brunswick girls are pretty
Portland girls are smart
But it takes a girl from Bath
to break a fellow's heart.
- Gloria Rogers, Corliss Street

I had a little cat
I fed him on tin cans
And when the little kittens came
They came in Ford Sedans.
- Jean MacDonald

Remember me when far far off
where the woodchucks die
with the whooping cough.
- Betty Hopkins, Corliss Street

The very best of luck to a future teacher from a teacher.
- Mary A. Morris, Portland, Maine

When Henry Met Grace

My maternal grandparents met in the early 1920s and were married on April 26, 1925.

A family scrapbook preserves a pamphlet from a campground called The Firs in Rockwood, Maine. In the margins, the following notes are written in Grace Block's hand:

I first met my husband at this place while I was teaching at Rockford and he was on a vacation.

[Under a photograph of a cabin] I shared one of these little houses with a woman from Mass., but we [ate] all meals at the Main Camp.

The pamphlet and an accompanying valentine card are dated 1922.

Popular Bath Teacher Married on Sunday

[Undated newspaper clipping on the marriage of Grace Boynton Leonard. The wedding occurred on April 26, 1925.]

Sunday afternoon, about 50 friends witnessed a very pretty wedding, solemnized at Elm Street church by Rev. J. E. Swetnam, when Grace B. Leonard became the wife of Henry M. Block.

At 1.30, Osgood McBean accompanied Mr. Block to the altar, when he awaited his bride who becomingly gowned in a white crepe-de-chine dress, and carrying a bouquet of white pinks, swinsona, and maidenhair fern, and a dainty white Prayer Book, entered on the arm of W. D. Coombs, as Miss Martha Bates, supervisor of public school music, of Bath, played Wagner's Wedding March from Lohengrin.

After a very impressive ceremony, Mr. and Mrs. Block marched out as Miss Bates played Mendelssohn's wedding march.

After the wedding, Mr. and Mrs. Block were taken to the home of Mr. McBean, where they were guests of Mrs. William Dow and Mrs. Osgood McBean at a wedding supper with a few friends. Those present were Mr. and Mrs. John Tyler, Mr. and Mrs. William Dow, Mr. and Mrs. McBean and Miss Sadie Coombs.

Mrs. Block is a graduate of Machias State Normal school and for the last three years has been a much beloved and efficient teacher in the Mitchell school, and she will be a loss to the teaching profession in Bath.

She has the good wishes of a host of friends in Bath as she and her husband go to their house in Jersey City, where Mr. Block is well known as a pharmacist.

The Family of Ken McLintock and Stella Block

"The Town Down the River" has been created to record genealogical information on the families of my parents, Stella Leonard (Block) McLintock and Kenneth McLintock.

This blog will include trivia, memorabilia, documentation, and other information pertaining to my family of origin. Relatives and other interested persons wishing to exchange information are encouraged to contact me.

In the context of discussing family history, I often refer to family members (including parents) by their personal names; this is done for clarity and is not meant to be disrespectful.

The title "The Town Down the River" is from a poem by Edwin Arlington Robinson, who was a favorite of both my parents.