OREN6 MAXFIELD (Eliphalet5, Nathaniel4, Eliphalet3, Nathaniel2, John1) was born at Durham, Strafford County, New Hampshire, on 1 January 1804, a child of Eliphalet and Jane (McCrillis) Maxfield. He dies at Toulon, Stark County, Illinois, on 21 November 1888. He married at Albion, Kennebec County, Maine, on 9 March 1826, CHLOE WASHBURN DEXTER, a daughter of Nathaniel and Chloe (Washburn) Dexter. She was born in Maine on 9 May 1808 and died at Toulon on 21 November 1872.
Elizabeth Wright, a great-granddaughter of Oren and Chloe, wrote the genealogy of the Maxfield family, which appeared in The Nebraska and Midwest Genealogical Record. The late Lester Brady Maxfield (1920-2007), also a great-grandchild of Oren and Chloe, has also provided me with information. Lester's daughter, Janis (Maxfield) Redpath-Kennedy, has continued to do research and has shared with me what she has discovered. So we have quality information on the family of Oren and Chloe Maxfield.
On October 6, 1819 Oren Maxfield, still a teenager, purchased a tract of land in Illinois. This tract had been granted to Adam McCaslin for his service in the War of 1812. This information has been gathered and is provided by Janis Redpath-Kennedy. The deed (Deed Records, Book A, page 78, Stark County Courthouse) reads:
| DEED ADAM McCASLIN to OREN MAXFIELD Know by all men by these presents that I Adam McCaslin now of Penobscot in the County of Hancock& Commonwealth of Massachusetts Yeoman late a Corporal in Chadwicks Company thirty fourth Regiment of Infantry in the army of the United States for and in consideration of three hundred dollars current money of the United States to me in hand paid by Oren Maxfield of Appleton Lincoln County State of Massachusetts at or before the sealing and delivery of these presents the receipt whereof I do hereby acknowledge do by these presents give grant bargain sell convey assign transfer set over and confirm to the said Oren Maxfield his heirs and assigns forever a certain tract of land containing one hundred sixty acres being the South east quarter of Section thirty at Township Thirteen North in Range Six East in the tract appropriated by acts of Congress for Military Bounties in the Territory of Illinois reference being had to the patent issued by the president of the United States in the name of me the said Adam McCaslin dated the tenth day of November in the year or our Lord eighteen hundred and eighteen and recorded in the General Land Office of the United States at the city of Washington Volume 30 page 462 as will more fully and at large appear by the said Patent which I have voluntarily delivered to the said Oren Maxfield..... State of Massachusetts Town of Castine County of Hancock SS Be it remembered that on this sixth day of October in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and nineteen personally appeared before me the subscriber a Notary Public and Justice of the peace.......and he being duly sworn doth depose and say that he is more than twenty one years of age that he has legal right to convey the above described premises and that he is the identical person described in the original Patent founded on warrant No 18672 which patent he has delivered to the above named. |
Oren, age fifteen, no doubt purchased the land with the assistance of his father. This deed provided Oren with the opportunity to later migrate west.
The fourth of ten children, Oren moved with his family of origin when he was about three years old, from Durham, to Union, Lincoln County, Maine. A couple of years later they moved to Appleton, Lincoln County. Oren married in 1826.
The Oren Maxfield family of China was reported in the 1830 Census consisting of the two adults in their 20s (Oren 26, Chloe 22) and a boy and a girl under 5 (Susan 1, George 0). The census also listed a male in his 30s, whose identity is unknown.
Oren and Chloe Maxfield traveled west in 1839-40 (here called 1835) with their three living children. Elizabeth Wright reported of her great-grandfather:
| He was a gentleman in all respects, very strict in his integrity and Sabbath observance; a Free-Will Baptist in religious belief, a chapter member of the Toulon, Illinois, Masonic Lodge, Whig or Republican in politics and a farmer by occupation. The Maxfields drove from "Dover Piscataquis, Me. Sept. 17, 1835, to Bangor twenty-eight miles; Sept. 18th drove eighteen miles to Newburg; Sept. 19th twenty-nine miles to China, Me; Sept 22nd twenty-six miles to Augusta bridge" and so on, mile after mile, from Maine to Toulon, Illinois, where they were pioneers in Stark County. |
The 1840 Census recorded the Oren Maxfield in Stark County, engaged in agriculture, consisting of a male and female in their 30s Oren 36, Chloe 32), a male 20-30 (unidentified). a female 10-15 (Susan 11), two males 5-10 (George 9, Oren 5), and one male under 5 (John 2).
The 1850 Census found the Oren Maxfield family in Stark County, as follows:
| Name | Age | Sex | Occupation | R.E. | Birthplace | Other |
| Oren Maxfield | 46 | M | farmer | $2500 | NH | |
| Chloe W. Maxfield | 42 | F | Me | |||
| Susan D. Maxfield | 21 | F | Me | school | ||
| George C. Maxfield | 19 | M | farmer | Me | school | |
| Oren Maxfield, Jr. | 15 | M | farmer | Me | school | |
| John B. Maxfield | 12 | M | Me | school | ||
| Charles H. M. Maxfield | 8 | M | Ill | school | ||
| Thomas H. Maxfield | 4 | M | Ill | school | ||
| Nathaniel D. Maxfield | 2 | M | Ill | |||
| Elsey Darnald | 7 | F | Ill | school |
The 1860 census reported Oren Maxfield, 56, farmer, Chloe W., 52, George W., 29, farmer, Oren, Junior, 26, farmer, Charles H., 17, farmer and attending school, Thomas H., 14, Nathaniel D., 12 attending school, Thomas Wright, 4, and three with other surnames, residing at Toulon Township. Thomas Wright was the son of Oren's late daughter Susan, who had married in 1853 nd died in 1856. Son John Bennock Maxfield had married in 1859, and in the 1860 Census was reported in the household of his inlaws, Eli and Sarah Shockley of Toulon.
Three sons of Oren and Chloe fought in the Civil War. George C. Maxfield enlisted on 15 August 1862 in Company F of Illinois 112th Infantry Regiment. He was promoted to full Second Lieutenant on 16 June 1863, and mustered out on 14 September 1864. According to Elizabeth Wright he participated in fifty-two battles and skirmishes. Oren Maxfield, Jr. enlisted in Company H of Illinois 139th Infantry Regiment on 10 May 1864, and was mustered out on 28 October 1864. Charles H. Maxfield enlisted in Company F New York 3rd Light Artillery Battery on 12 August 1862 and was mustered out on 23 May 1863.
The years following the Civil War saw some of the veterans marrying and settling down. George married in 1864, Oren (Jr.) in 1866. The 1870 Census reported the Oren Maxfield family in Toulon Township, Toulon Post Office, as follows:
| Name | Age | Sex | Race | Occupation | R.E. | P.E. | Birth | Other |
| Maxfield, Orrin Sr. | 66 | M | W | farmer | $1200 | $1070 | NH | |
| Maxfield, Chloe W. | 62 | F | W | keeping house | ME | |||
| Maxfield, Charles H. | 27 | M | W | brick maker | IL | |||
| Maxfield, Thomas H. | 24 | M | W | farmer | $660 | IL | ||
| Maxfield, N. Dexter | 22 | M | W | farmer | $660 | IL | ||
| Wright, Thomas M. | 13 | M | W | IL | school | |||
| Orwin, Phebe J. | 38 | F | W | ME | ||||
| Anderson, Fredericka | 20 | F | W | domestic servant | Sweden | parents foreign b. |
Son George C. Maxfield and his wife were reported in 1870 at Toulon, with only one intervening household between he and his parents. Oren Maxfield (Jr.), 34, harness maker, also lived at Toulon, with his wife and two children. John B. Maxfield, also reported at Toulon, was 33, a laborer; with him were his wife and three children.
Chloe died in 1872, Oren on 1888. His obituary appeared in a local paper:
The deceased was the son of Eliphalet and Jane Maxfield, born in old Durham, N. H., Jan. 1, 1804. At the age of four years he went with his parents to Lincoln county, Maine, where after arriving at mature years he engaged in farming and milling. Here also in March, 1826, he was united in marriage to Chloe W. Dexter, daughter of Nathaniel Dexter. Owing to the failing health of his wife and advice of their physician, on Sept. 17, 1839, with a three horse team and a wagon so spacious it was termed an ark – started from Dover, Maine, for Illinois, and after just 100 days landed in Knoxville, where his father lived, and in the spring of 1840 came to Stark county where he had purchased a tract of land before leaving his native state and without having seen it, and there as a pioneer founded him the home that sheltered him in his declining years. His wife died her Nov. 21, 1872, within an hour of just sixteen years of the time of his departure. Their family consisted of nine children, five of whom are still living, honest and respectable representatives of their progenitor. Mr. Maxfield was a Christian, first choosing the Baptist church as his home and later in life, probably twenty years ago, connected with the Congregational church here and remained a member to the time of his death. On Thursday at 1:00 the funeral services were conducted from the Congregational church by the pastor, Rev. J. H. Dixon, assisted by Rev. E. W. Hicks of the Baptist church, and his counsel to the living and consolation to the mourning ones was full of thought and consideration; and as we beheld the beautiful flowers that covered the casket lid they betrayed to our minds that land beyond where flowers eternal bloom and the weary are forever at rest. A large concourse of people, many whose heads were silvered and step infirm, followed the pioneer to his last resting place on earth and as we look around we see but few left of his day and generation.
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There is a discrepancy between this obituaty and information provided by Elizabeth Wright concerning the year of migration. As the son born in 1837 is consistently reported in census records as born in Maine, I will go with the later date.
Elizabeth Wright described her father, Thomas Maxfield Wright, grandson of Oren and Chloe:
| Thomas Maxfield Wright lived with his grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Oren Maxfield, until February 1874, when he removed to Fairmount, Nebraska, with his uncle, George Clark Maxfield. From 1881 to 1923 he was associated with the grain business of Fairmont. He sold his business to the Farmers Co-op Association and retired to the business of real estate and insurance. He is a member of the Hesperian Lodge No. 42, I.O.O.F., Royal Highlanders, and is a Republican. Both he and Mrs Wright are members of the First Congregational Church of Fairmont, in which they take an active interest. He has served on the City Council and as Justice of the Peace. |
Oren and Chloe (Dexter) Maxfield had the following children:
1
2
3
4
5
6
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7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
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23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
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