finding Joseph

Geneology.

We know Olive's parents were William Davis Hayden and Naomi (Lawrence) Hayden; William's parents were Jedidiah Hayden and Judith (Davis) Hayden, and we know many generations back from there in fact, beyond the Revolutionary War which Olive's greatgrandfather fought in, on to England. Lots and lots of Haydens

On it's history page, the Lakewood Theater website mentions "the homestead of Joseph Hayden" and this Hayden, well, I hadn't encountered yet. Thinking of the same website's mention of Jedediah Hayden's arrival by ox-cart from Gray, Maine...  and it not being the first time ox-carts have wound their way into these stories...  I dug a bit and found this info from the Gray Maine Historical Society: 

Joseph Hayden ( - 1842) was one of the first shoemakers in Gray.  He built a small one story shop (10-15sf).  It was well lighted by a hanging lamp and had a round woodstove in the center with an iron skillet setting inside the top in which he melted his wax.  These were for sewed shoes, the shoemaker using waxed thread with a needle on each end of the thread.  An awl was used to make the holes.  Someone quoted “he was a honest man, did his work well and put in no poor leather”. 

It makes sense of course, that they did additionally have cencus records of Jedidiah Hayden and his wife Judith (Davis) Hayden ; as well as David Hayden and his wife Betsy (Davis) Hayden.  Elsewhere in the records were Haydens Elisha, Richard Jr, and Jonathan, who, along with David, were indeed all brothers of Jedidiah; and all reasonably coming through Gray, but there was still no way to connect them to Joseph. This may be a good time to let it be known that Jedidiah had four other brothers: Enoch, Clement, Samuel, and Daniel [who moved here with his own young son named Enoch in 1812, as referenced in earlier blog posts] as well as three sisters, Sally, Mary, and Hannah.

And it was also noted in the Historical Society that Joseph married Abilgal Nash July 6, 1800.

I can tell you that there is indeed a Joseph Hayden on the same family tree: Jedidiah's brother Daniel (the same that moved to the land in 1812 with little Enoch in the bunch) had a son named Daniel Richard Hayden, who then had a son named Joseph Warren Hayden, born in 1860 and passed away in 1936.(his decendents still in the area)  But he wasn't one of the ox-cart travelers, and wasn't a beloved shoemaker of Gray, Maine.

I'm still looking for my shoemaker, whoever he might have been.