A Vermont mother on the Michigan lumber frontier

Lucy L. Wellington was born in Vermont in 1801, the daughter of Josiah Wellington and Polly Hutchinson. She grew up in Braintree and Randolph in Orange County and married James Wakefield there on 14 December 1820.¹

Their marriage began a family that would span the entire period of New England’s westward migration. Their first children were born in Vermont: George W. Wakefield (1821), Calvin Wakefield (1822), and Jefferson Wakefield (1823). They were followed by Matilda Wakefield (1825) and Luther Wakefield (1826). After a move within Orange County to Randolph, Lucy gave birth to Mary Jane Wakefield (1831), Jasper Wakefield (1833), Augusta Wakefield (1835), Levay Wakefield (1840), and Dana A. Wakefield (1842).² By the time the youngest child was born, Lucy had spent more than twenty years raising a large household in the hill towns of Vermont.

The family remained in Randolph through the 1850 census, but about 1855 Lucy and James joined the movement of many Orange County families to the Saginaw Valley of Michigan, settling in Albee Township.³

The Civil War years brought losses that touched Lucy directly. Her son Levay died in 1862, and her son Dana A. Wakefield died in 1864 while in service in Georgia.⁴

In April 1864, at more than sixty years of age, Lucy made a homestead entry at the United States Land Office in East Saginaw for 120 acres in Section 11 of Grant Township, Iosco County.⁵ Testimony preserved in the later federal land case established that she lived on this tract, built a house, cleared land, and planted an orchard.⁶ The Wakefield farm was remembered locally many years later as a well-known place in the township.

Lucy participated in the development of the community. On 23 December 1868 she signed a petition in support of aid for the Tawas City and Plank Road Company, a project intended to connect the interior settlements with the Lake Huron shore.⁷ In 1870 she was enumerated in Grant Township with her daughter and son-in-law.⁸

Local and land ownership sources associate her property with the Sand Lake Hotel on the State Road. While the federal records describe her as a homesteader, her household stood at a recognized location in a lumbering township where travelers and workers moved between the interior and the shore.⁹

On 3 August 1876 Lucy wrote her will in Grant Township, bringing to a close more than a decade on the homestead she had established in her sixties.¹⁰

She died on 1 June 1879 in Albee Township, Saginaw County, at the age of seventy-eight. The cause of death was consumption.¹¹ In the 1880 mortality schedule she appears as a widowed woman, born in Vermont, whose final residence was in Michigan.¹²

Lucy’s life began in the settled farming towns of Vermont and ended on the edge of the Michigan lumber frontier. Between those two places she raised eleven children, buried two sons lost in the Civil War era, and, in her later years, established a working homestead in a newly opened township.

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Children of James and Lucy (Wellington) Wakefield

• George W. Wakefield, born 7 June 1821, Vermont
• Calvin Wakefield, born 15 January 1822, Vermont
• Jefferson Wakefield, born 3 February 1823 – died 1905
• Matilda Wakefield, born 10 February 1825
• Luther Wakefield, born 11 October 1826 – died 1895
• Mary Jane Wakefield, born 10 April 1831 – died 1888
• Jasper Wakefield, born 6 December 1833 – died 1915
• Augusta Wakefield, born 7 September 1835 – died 1899
• Levay Wakefield, born 12 October 1840 – died 8 February 1862
• Dana A. Wakefield, born 1 May 1842 – died 14 May 1864

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Sources

1. Vermont vital and town records; marriage of James Wakefield and Lucy Wellington, Braintree, 14 December 1820.
2. Vermont vital records and compiled family histories for Wakefield family births.
3. 1850 U.S. census, Randolph, Orange County, Vermont; Saginaw County settlement information.
4. Military death information for Levay Wakefield and Dana A. Wakefield.
5. U.S. General Land Office, homestead entry, Lucy Wakefield, East Saginaw Land Office, April 1864.
6. Department of the Interior land case file, witness testimony describing residence, buildings, and orchard on the Wakefield homestead.
7. Petition supporting aid to the Tawas City and Plank Road Company, Grant Township, 23 December 1868.
8. 1870 U.S. census, Grant Township, Iosco County, Michigan.
9. Iosco County early land ownership compilations and local historical sources identifying the Wakefield property with the Sand Lake Hotel site.
10. Iosco County, Michigan, will of Lucy Wakefield, 3 August 1876.
11. Michigan death record, Lucy Wakefield, 1 June 1879, Albee Township, Saginaw County; cause of death: consumption.
12. 1880 U.S. Federal Census Mortality Schedule, Saginaw County, Michigan.