MATTAWAMKEAG, Maine — Town Clerk Jodi Furge administers Maine General Assistance to town residents, and she’s never heard of such programs giving clients flour, shoes, pork, tobacco or molasses.
But thanks to Maine State Archives Services workers, a Civil War-era ledger documenting the assistance given to the town’s veterans from 1864 to 1868, Furge and other residents will get to see who from town fought in the war and how the government gave thanks for their sacrifice.
“If you are into history, I think it is kind of great,” Selectwoman Gail Seavey said Sunday. “People can see who their ancestors were and what they were making” in restitution.
Maine State Archives Services staff member Anthony Douin spotted the ledger on eBay, where it was being sold by a Missouri woman, last month. Board of Selectmen Chairman John Whitehouse and Furge agreed with archives workers that it should be returned to Mattawamkeag, so State Archivist David Cheever contacted the seller. She agreed to send the ledger, and it arrived at the archives in Augusta on Dec. 22, officials said.
“In our initial research of the 19 family names listed, more than half are Civil War veterans, including three deaths and two disability discharges,” said Cheever in a statement, noting that one was a lumberman by trade, while the rest were farmers. “The bulk of them are, indeed, individuals and families who needed and requested assistance after the war.”
Seavey and Furge said they didn’t know of any families today that date to the Civil War in the northern Penobscot County town, population 670.
“The state did list me off some names that sounded familiar, but I am not sure if they are related to anybody here,” Furge said.
Cheever said several remain. One, the Bishop family, received assistance before and after David Bishop was killed at Petersburg, Virginia, on June 18, 1864. The 41-year-old farmer, a member of Company D of the 1st Maine Heavy Artillery, was killed during an attack on an entrenched Confederate position that lasted less than 10 minutes, but drew more than 600 casualties, officials said.
A 411.com search on Sunday listed two town residents named Bishop, but the numbers were unlisted.
Bishop family provisions included yards of cloth, needles and thread — a humanizing insight into the war’s impact on Mattawamkeag, Cheever said.
Furge doesn’t know where town leaders want it placed, but it could go back in the town’s records vault or in a glass case in the town library. As the town’s top guardian of records, she said she wonders how it got all the way to Missouri.
“Years ago the town office was in a different building. Maybe when things got moved” it got lost or taken, Furge said. “There are so many old books there.”
The ledger is due to arrive at the town office this week, Furge said.