About

Joseph and son, Henry, Ingraham kept diaries, 1795-1875.  Joseph was an early settler in Rockland, Maine, arriving from Cape Ann by 1779 and settling on 200 acres bordering on Rockland harbor.  He met his future father-in-law, Jacob Keen, walking back together from the Battle of Castine in 1779.  A ship captain, Justice of the Peace, farmer, and holder of town and church offices, the reader is immediately plunged into life on the Maine frontier.  His brothers, Job and Josiah, settled on adjacent farms.  Son, Henry, began writing at age 13, the day his older brother, Coit, set sail for life as a mariner.  Henry’s older sister, Lydia, married Thomas Tolman of another early family in Rockland.  Brother Charles died of drowning.  Henry married Mary Lindsey of Rockland and settled in the old homestead on Ingraham’s Point in Rockland.  The diaries contain daily entries covering the weather, shipping, farming, lime burning, town and church activities, the War of 1812 and Civil War and countless events in family, neighborhood, town and country.