John Lemuel Dyer and Harriet A Hammond (couple 8)

[Jen's paternal GGGrandparents]
[Marylou Holt > Terena Elizabeth Griffin > Terena Elizabeth Dyer > couple 8]

John Lemuel Dyer
BIRTH: 12 January 1866, Portland, Cumberland, Maine, United States
DEATH: 24 September, 1934, Maine, United States

Harriet A Hammond
BIRTH: Jun 1875, Cumberland, Maine, United States
DEATH: 1949

Cliff Island Cove, from here.

John Dyer
John L Dyer was born in 1866 to Moses Plummer Dyer (1834-1905) and Rosa P Johnson (1846-1871) on Long Island, Portland, Maine.

1870 Census shows John's father Moses as a Fisherman in Cumberland County, not owning his house, but $400 in personal effects.

Siblings to John Dyer
1. John Lemuel Dyer (1866-1934) m 1889 Harriet A Hammond (1875-1949)
2. Alonzo Gustavus Dyer (1867-1931) m 1897 Maggie Lucinda York (1879-1961)

Mother Rosa P died in 1871 at age 25, leaving father Moses with two young boys John and Alonzo. Moses and Alonzo are in Scarborough in the house of Lydia A Doughty in 1880 (Moses's fiancee), and her two children, Willie (b1874) and Harry (b1877).  John Lemuel may be living with other family.

Harriet Hammond
Harriet A Hammond was born on Crotch Island, Maine to Benjamin Hammond (1854-1916) and Almira F Pettengill (1854-1889) in June 1875. They had been married in 1870.  She is currently thought to be an only child.

1880 Census says Benjamin was a farmer, and he and Elmira F had a boarder named Benjamin W, who was actually Benjamin's father (age 63).  They listed their one daughter, Hattie.  They lived among the Smalls and Pettingills.

Almira died in 1889, and father Benjamin F (35) remarried to Mary G Ham on 3 November 1889.  Coincidentally, that was the same week that daughter Harriet (14) married.

Life Together
Harriet and John Dyer were married on 30 October, 1889 in Cumberland County, Maine.

1900 Census shows John and Harriet, married 10 years, with John working as a fisherman.  They own their house free and clear.

1910 Census shows John and Harriet, John is listed as a fisherman. After having been married for 20 years, they had raised five children, all still living as of 1910.  They are the first family from Cliff Island on the Census Register.

Children of Harriet and John

1. Inez Almira (Apr 1892-1983) m 1908 Myles Leo O'Reilly (1881-aft1940)

2. Christina A (May 1894-1965), died at Portland, (Brunswick?)

3. Elizabeth Terena (Apr 1897-1967), m 1912 Stephen Harold Griffin (1889-1933) m 1934 Dwinal C Griffin (1890-1968)

4. Harriett J (Sept 1899-1921), m 1917 Cecil Manford Doughty (1891-??) died in childbirth

5. John F (1902-1977). m Esther M (1908-2000)

1930 Census shows John and Harriett at an apartment on Gilman Street, Portland, also taking care of a granddaughter Thelma (child of Inez Dyer O'Reilley).

The same year of his death, in 1934, his daughter Terena married a second time, and on that application, she listed her father John as a shipper.

John was buried on Great Chebeague Island, Maine, in 1934, and Harriet was buried there also in 1949. 

A few years later, in 1938, Harriet married Merrill Crossman (also of Maine) who in his later years worked as a caretaker at a private estate in Cambridge, MA.  They lived at 140 Upland Road, Cambridge for a few years before her death in 1949.

Chebeague Island, from here.

On Chebeague Island, which seceded from Cumberland Maine in 2007, from Wikipedia: 

"These islands are sometimes referred to as an older, now archaic term "The Calendar Islands" because there was once a belief that the approximate number of islands was 365. The actual number is fewer than two hundred."

And about the "rusticators" who came to vacation:

"By the late 19th century and throughout the early 20th century, tourists from Canada, Boston and points south began to visit Maine in a phenomenon sometimes known as the "rusticators" movement.^[6] Cottages, rooming houses, and inns, such as the historic (but rebuilt) Chebeague Island Inn, were scattered around Casco Bay, served by steamboats from Portland where crowds of tourists from the industrial cities of New England could get back to nature for a few days or weeks"

 Chebeague Historical Society