Person:Christiana Wormwood (3)

Obituary from Houlton ME newspaper:

Death of a Pioneer Resident

Grandmother is dead. The long life is over, and, at the ripe age on ninty, her sons and daughters laid her loved form to rest, where fourty-four years ago, friends who have long proceded her buried her husband. But one connecting link, Mrs. Lysander Putnam, remains of that chain of sturdy pioneers who carved out of the primeval forest the goodly heritage we now enjoy.

Grandmother is today byta memory. Yesterday, she was a living reminder of the self-sacrifice and loving devotion of a generation that gave its all for prosterity. The story of her life is as interesting as a romance and from her lips we used to hear the history of those events that have made the modern world. Born in the time of Napoleon, she nearly filled out the years of this all changing century, and she lived to see the mild sway of reason displace the sterner dictates of passion in the affairs of man and state.

Grandmother was born in Alfred, ME., March 24th 1804, and her earlist recollection of affairs of importance wa the thrilling tales and stirring scenes of the second war with Great Britian; for as her father's family were on their way toward the noe settlement, away out the northeastern frontier, they passed through the city of Portland on the day of the burial there of the comanders of the vessels, Enterprise and Boxer, slain in the engagement the preceding day. As a little girl of nine stood with uncovered head watching the solemn porcession file by with revesered arms and muffled drum, the seeds of devotion to native land, were sown in her childish heart that later grew into patriotism, supporting the mother, as she sent out in defence of her country, three brave boys. One whom sleeps in an unknown grave hallowed and made sacried by the blood of a northern soldier.

In the days when Cristiana Wormwood came to Houlton , the vast expanse was broken only by a tiny spot of clearing, enclosing a few rude buildings, perched high up on "The Hill". One frame building was the pride of the infant settlement. Grandmother early entered into the active life of the settlement, and on November 1, 1818, she was married to Amos Putnam. The following year, Mr. Putnam moved his young wife and infant son, Houlton, onto the farm where Alvarez Putnam now lives, on the Calais road. Here grandmother lived sixty-six years, watching the progress of the village,with a personal interest in the furtherance of every effort that made for the good of the community. Here she reared a family of sixteen sons and daughters, losing by death one infant. June 1849, Amos Putnam died, and grandmother labored on to giver her children all the advantages the time and place afforded. Her ninety years of life were too short for her to hear aught against the men and women she sent into the world. Strongly impressed with sterling character, the Putnam birthright, the do honor by their daily deeds to the training the mother gave them. Yesterday there were nine of the family on the other side of that river which parts this life from the future, while ten were here. Today, the majority stands on the distant shore, while the whitened looks of the venerable men who bore their mother to her last resting place bespeak but a short separation.

The last few years (fragment lost) lived with her daughter (fragment lost) ago she ceased to take an (fragment lost) our doings and after a brief lingering (fragment lost) she passed peacefully away, Friday Sept. 14th. at the home of Lydia Putnam Hannigan, a part of the farm to which she moved when "Houlton was a baby." She was buried from the Unitarian Church of which she was a member, mourned alike by her nine surviving children, their descendants through five generations from grandmother, and the townspeople who felt a personal loss in this bereavement. To all who knew her, the remarkable vigor of mind and body which sustained her so long was a constant source of

PUTNAM FAMILY GENEALOGICAL CHART HISTORY OF HOULTON BY CORA CARPENTER PUTNAM

1.   Import from Conn-Nectons & Cousins.
2.   M432_248, in United States. 1850 U.S. Census Population Schedule. (National Archives Microfilm Publication M432)
   56, 1850.
3.   United States. 1860 U.S. Census Population Schedule.
4.   United States. 1870 U.S. Census Population Schedule.
5.   United States. 1880 U.S. Census Population Schedule.