LIFE OF JOHN CARTER - Part 3 - MARRIAGE TO HANNAH

Our next glimpse of John is his marriage to Hannah Knight Libby in Scarborough:

A list of Marriages in the Second Parish in the Town of Scarborough
From April 1805 to April 1806
Record by Robert Hart, Town Clerk
1806
Mar 2, John Carter & Hannah Knight Libby

John and Hannah's Marriage:  Office of Town Clerk, Scarborough, Maine, Town Records, 1681 – 1893, Family History Library Film #12221, page 225

            The above image is the original of this document so you can attest to the accuracy of the transcription.  Many in the family have tried to show this marriage as occurring in 1805 (including Archibald Bennett) but it really didn’t occur until 2 March 1806. In all honesty this was a cover up of the fact that John and Hannah had to get married.  The truth is they didn't marry until 1806 and that is what it is.  The page starts with marriages in 1805 but two lines above John and Hannah's marriage you can see the clerk wrote 1806.  Why do I say there was an attempt to make the date more proper?  Leslie Carter and Archibald Bennett discussed this heatedly in early correspondence until Leslie provided the above original.  At that point Archibald admitted his mistake and called it a "subconscious error" which I interpret as an attempt to make the date more acceptable to his LDS descendants.  Because of the fact many of the readers of this blog may still have old family group sheets in their possession that give the 1805 marriage date, I feel this point needs to be addressed.  The problem we have today is these errors (regardless of how they were created) have a life of their own and are hard to stop.  We don't need to judge our ancestors in situations like this but rather report truth when truth is found.  In truth then some two and a half months after the marriage, the birth of their first born, Dominicus, occurred on 21 June 1806.  

Hannah Knight Libby Carter (original in possession of Joe Conover)

             John’s wife, Hannah Knight Libby, was born October 9, 1786 in Scarborough, Maine, the daughter of Captain Zebulon Libby (a 3 year soldier in the Revolutionary War) and Lydia Andrews.  Most of her immediate ancestors were early settlers in Scarborough.  

The following are descriptions of her in her later life.  Mrs. Ella K. Milliner stated in 1933 that she was of medium height, less than 5 feet 2 inches, very slim and proud with a delicate face, brown hair and light blue eyes, overall a handsome woman.  She always had her hair combed straight down, parted in the middle, straight down at the ears, and tied by a ribbon in a bow at the back.  She was real dressy, and had a beautiful black silk dress, with a plain waist, high neck and lace collar.   Frances Carter Knight, a daughter of Dominicus Carter, described her grandmother from memory as short and had a round face.  She was light complexioned and her eyes were a light color.  She did not look as old as she was.  Her hair was grey when Frances knew her.  She wore a little lace cap.  He had a good education, and was always very industrious, keeping her knitting close by, and working when she was what might be considered too old to work.   Unfortunately there is no comparable description of John, nor is there any image that we know of in existence.