The Saga of Captain James Scott Simmonds and Mercy Ann Freeman

Flora Ann Campbell Beattie

This is a great one!
Captain James Scott Simmonds was the uncle of our Great Grandmother, Sarah Simmonds.
- Sarah married William John Campbell and their first child was Flora Ann.
 - Sarah died when Flora Ann was born in 1851.
  - William John Campbell was drowned in the Bay of Fundy in 1860 when Flora was 9 years old.
   - Flora was adopted by William and Isabella (William John's sister) Beattie.
    - Flora Ann Beattie married John William Gamble and their daughter Julia was my Grandma Bragg.

So back to James and Mercy....

James was born near Truro, Nova Scotia in 1794 and by the age of 19, had became a Master Mariner.  He sailed to and from his home port - and on a visit to Eastport, Maine became aquainted with a merchant shipper named Joshua Edwards Freeman.  Joshua introduced James to his sister Mercy who was from New York and had come to keep house for her brother.  Tradition says it was love at first sight and the two were married just a few months later in Truro.

Shortly before their first anniversary, James and Mercy (who was expecting their first child) were attending a neighbour's barn raising when one of the timbers slipped, killing Captain James instantly.  In great shock, Mercy was taken in by her in-laws to await the birth of their baby.  William Henry Simmonds was born in November 1817 and Mercy was very slow to recover.

Through some sort of subterfuge, John Simmonds and his wife Susannah convinced Mercy that their grandson  had died at birth and so Mercy packed up her things and returned to Maine.  She became a seamstress and eventually remarried and moved to Illinois.

Meanwhile, John and Susannah raised the young William, telling him that his mother had died in childbirth when he was born. Like his father, he became a ship's captain at a young age, married and had a family.  They settled in Augusta Maine where William supervised a ship building yard.  One day a young man named Freeman came to him applying for a job.

In conversation, William mentioned that his mother's maiden name was Freeman and that she had married a sea captain who died in an accident and that she had died when he was born.  The young man countered that he had an aunt Mercy Freeman who had married a sea captain in Nova Scotia and who was also killed in a freak accident.  They had a young son, who had died at birth.  The thought haunted William and the next day he convinced the young man to take him to meet this woman.

Evidently, William had grown up looking very much like his father and when he walked into "Aunt Mercy's" home, she fainted dead away.

Overjoyed at this reunion with his mother, William left his ship building business, packed up his family and bought a farm near her home.