HARVEY PAGE6 MAXFIELD (Onesiphorus5, Currier4, Joshua3, Joseph2, John1) was born at Goshen, Sullivan County, New Hampshire, on 29 May 1840, a child of O. Page Maxfield and his wife Abigail H. Cutts.[1] He died at Stevens Point, Portage County, Wisconsin, on 9 April 1899.[2] He married first on 17 September 1866 FANNY P. DODGE.[3] She was born at New Hampshire in July or August, 1843, and died on 13 July 1873.[4] Harvey married second, at Lynn, Essex County, Massachusetts, on 22 November 1876 LAURA A. SOUTHWICK, a child of Isaac D. and Laura Southwick.[5] She was born at Groton, Grafton County, New Hampshire, on April 1848[6] and died at Los Angeles County, California, on 21 June 1927.[7]
The fourth of seven children, Harvey grew up on a farm in Goshen. The 1860 Census reported him, age 20, on his parents' farm.[8]
Harvey and Fanny married in 1866, when he was 26 and she 23. The 1870 census reported them immediately before his parents, at Goshen (Mill Village Post Office):[9]
| Name | Age | Sex | Race | Occupation | R.E. | P.E. | Birth | Other |
| Maxfield, Harvey P. | 30 | M | W | farmer | $2500 | $1500 | NH | |
| Maxfield, Fanny | 26 | F | W | keeping house | NH | |||
| Maxfield, Herman E. | 2 | M | W | at home | NH |
Fanny died at the age of 29 years and eleven months, leaving Harvey with a four-year-old son. Three years later Harvey married Laura Southwick. At that time Harvey had moved to Lynn and was working as a shoemaker.[10] They had a child in 1879 who died in infancy. The 1880 reported them back at Goshen:[11]
| Name | Related | MS | Sex | Race | Age | B | Occupation | FB | MB |
| Harvey P. Maxfield | self | M | M | W | 40 | NH | farmer | NH | NH |
| Laura A. Maxfield | wife | M | F | W | 32 | NH | keeping house | NH | NH |
| Herman W. Maxfield | son | S | M | W | 12 | NH | NH | NH | |
| Abigail Maxfield | mother | W | F | W | 70 | NH | house keeper | NH | NH |
About 1883 The Harvey P. Maxfield family moved west to Wisconsin. They settled at Stevens Point, where he had a business as a boot and shoe merchant. He was active in the Methodist church there, serving as President of the Board of Trustees at a time when they protested the appointment of their pastor by the bishop.[12] He died in 1899 from general debility and malnutrition from stomach trouble he had for several years.[13] Harvey's son by his first marriage was on his own and married. Harvey's wife Laura was left with her daughter, Florence, age seventeen. The 1900 Census reported Laura Maxfield, 52, widow, at Stevens Point with her daughter Florence, 19. This record reported that Laura had three children, one of whom was living.[14]
By 1910 Laura and Florence had moved to Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, where Florence taught in public school.[15] The 1920 Census reported them at Los Angeles again: Laura, 71, widow, Florence, 38, teacher in public school. Laura died in 1927.[16]
Herman E. Maxfield married Ella Mayhew in 1889 at West Chicago, Cook County, Illinois. The 1900 Census reported them at Milwaukee, Milwaukee County, Wisconsin:[17]
| Line | Name | Related | Race | Sex | Born | MS | B | FB | MB | Occupation |
| 94. | Maxfield, Herman | head | W | M | Sep 1867 | M | NH | NH | NH | engineer |
| 95. | Maxfield, Ella | wife | W | F | Aug 1866 | M | WI | NY | NY | house keeper. |
This record also noted that they had been married eleven years, and she had no children.
Ella (Mayhew) Maxfield left her husband about 1902. According to her later account, on 30 December 1903 she attended a musical at the Iroquois Theater in Chicago with a friend. A fire broke out killing 602 persons, and injuring 250 others, of a total 1700 persons present. Meanwhile, Herman Maxfield had secured a divorce in 1904 and remarried in 1907. Ella resurfaced in 1912 when she went to claim an inheritance. The story created much interest, as described in newspapers:[18]
Mrs. Ella Mayhew Maxfield, Who Appeared After Being Mourned for Dead Nine Years, a Sister of Mrs. A. F. Olmsted -- Additional Developments Mrs. Ella Mayhew, whose appearance in the role of a feminine Enoch Arden at Grand Rapids, Wis., as announced in the Commonwealth Tuesday proves to be Ella Mayhew Maxfield, daughter of Mrs. Betsy Mayhew, late of the town of Empire, this county, and a sister of Mrs. A. F. Olmsted of the town of Fond du Lac. "The last we heard of my sister was in 1902," said Mrs. Olmsted this morning in discussing the case, "She was then Mrs. Herman Maxfield and was in Milwaukee. When she did not appear at my mother's funeral and no word having been received from her since 1902 we thought she was dead, and the first intimation that she was living came when she telephoned to my son, George Olmstead and inquired the whereabouts of her daughter." The following Grand Rapids dispatch throws additional light upon the strange romance of Mrs. Maxfield's life: "Mrs. Maxfield has been one of the leading workers in the northwest each year in the Christmas seal campaign of the association she represents. Now that her secret is disclosed and she is free to resume her true name, she will remain in the service of the cause under the nom de guerre of Mayhew, which she assumed on learning that her husband had married again. "Her secret became known when she came here to visit her daughter Mrs. Sidney Burrows of West Grand Rapids, who had until a few days ago supposed that her mother had perished in the holocaust of the Iroquois fire. "On that day Miss Mayhew, or Mrs. Maxfield, as her name was at that time, attended the matinee with a friend. When the fire broke out they became separated. The friend escaped uninjured, but as no trace of Mrs. Maxfield could be found but a charred skeleton, wearing a ring bearing her initials, she was mourned as dead. "Mrs. Maxfield was not dead. She had been badly injured and taken to a Red Cross hospital, where for a long time her life hung by a thread and for two years her mind was a blank. Upon her recovery she learned that, supposing her to be dead, her husband had married again, and her only child, Mrs. Burrows, had changed her residence. "Mrs Maxfield decided it to be best to conceal her identity under an assumed name. She became connected with the hospital, where she had been restored to life, and health, and her existence probably would never have been discovered were it not for the settlement of an estate, in which she was identified. Her name was mentioned in the newspaper and was seen by the daughter. "A long distance telephone call resulted and the well known voice of the mother answered. "While making a trip through the south, she learned that her mother had died in Fond du Lac. Mrs. Maxfield then learned that her mother had left a will giving all of her property to her three daughters. Hastening to Fond du Lac, Mrs. Maxfield found that it would be necessary for her to reveal her identity and after having met a nephew, George Olmstead of Fond du Lac, found that her only daughter had been married in Milwaukee six years ago. She immediately called up this daughter and told her the facts and asked her to aid her if necessary in proving her right to her mother's property. "Mrs. Burrows, though anxious to keep the news of her mother's recovery from the effects of the theater fire unknown, was so delighted that she told a neighbor, whose husband is the editor of the Wisconsin Valley Leader of this city. He printed a short account of the woman's return to life and her own name on the day that Mrs. Maxfield began her visit with Mrs. Burrows. This publicity, too, was distasteful to both Mrs. Burrows and her mother, and, added to Mrs. Maxfield's return, caused Mrs. Burrows prostration from nervous shock, from which she is now convalescing. "Mrs. Burrows' refusal to tell where her father is now living, though he is thought to be still in Chicago, with his second wife, unaware that his first wife is not a victim of the Iroquois disaster." |
(The reference to Enoch Arden is to a poem by Alfred Tennyson about a man long missing and presumed dead, who reappeared after his spouse had remarried),
When the press caught up with Herman Maxfield, he discredited her story:[19]
Husband of Mrs. Ella Mayhew Interviewed --Declares Iroquois Fire Story Is False The strange story of a feminine Enoch Arden in the person of Mrs. Ella Mayhew, formerly Mrs. Herman Maxfield, trained nurse and tuberculosis lecturer, who after a thrilling experience in the Chicago Iroquois theater fire was supposed to have lost her memory and subsequently returned to find her husband happily remarried, was denied Wednesday night when the supposed husband, Herman Maxfield, at 426 Herman street, Milwaukee, denied her story. "I divorced her eight years ago," said Mr. Maxfield. "At the time of the Iroquois fire I had not the slightest idea of her whereabouts, as she had left a year previous to that time. "This woman and I had been married and had lived at 99 South Bay street for several years," continues Mr. Maxfield, "We had one child who is now Mrs. Sidney Burrows, living at West Grand Rapids, and I understand that it was through her that the first news of this supposed return became known." "The first Mrs. Maxfield, who has since adopted the nom de guerre of Mrs. Ella Mayhew," says the Milwaukee Sentinel, "lived with Maxfield on South Bay street and conducted a small boarding house, while he worked as an oiler, but shortly after the birth of the child, according to Maxfield, she left him. 'Not long after she left us,' he said, "I secured the divorce papers on grounds of desertion and have them ready to produce any time they may be required. "I want nothing of her and only wish to be left alone." There were no children by the second marriage. |
Herman Maxfield and his second wife Emily Bentz were reported at Milwaukee in the 1910, 1920, 1930 and 1950 censuses.[20] In 1910 he was a boiler tender in a steel mill. In 1920 he was a helper in a machine shop. In 1930 he was a janitor for a school.
Harvey Maxfield and his first wife Fanny had the following child:
1Wisconsin Department of Health Services. Madison, Wisconsin, Wisconsin Death Records, 1959-2004, no. 02374, Harvey P. Maxfield, 1899; digital imagesAncestry (ancestry.com : accessed 11 April 2023) - 19 May 1840. Walter R. Nelson, History of Goshen, New Hampshire (Concord, New Hampshire: Evans, 1957), 411.
2Wisconsin Death Records, 1959-2004, no. 02374, Harvey P. Maxfield, 1899.
3Nelson, History of Goshen, New Hampshire, 411.
4Mill Village Cemetery, Goshen, Sullivan County, New Hampshire, Find a Grave, digital images (findagrave.com : accessed 30 November 2017), Fannie P. Maxfield; Created and photo by: Sue.
5Massachusetts Archives, "Vital Records of Massachusetts, 1841-1910," digital images, American Ancestors (americanancestors.org : accessed 29 August 2017), vol. 280, p. 229, e. 286, Lynn Marriages, 1876; Maxfield-Southwick.
6Twelth Census of the United States: 1900, population, Stevens Point, Portage County, Wisconsin, enumeration district (ED) 112, p. 4A, household 75, Laura Maxfield boarding house; digital images, Ancestry (ancestry.com : accessed 28 January 2014); NARA microfilm group T623; Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration.
7California Department of Health and Welfare. California Vital Records, "California Death Index, 1905-1939," Ancestry (ancestry.com : accessed 27 October 2023), Laura A. Maxfield, 1927.
8Eighth Census of the United States: 1860, population, Goshen, Sullivan County, New Hampshire, roll 681, p. 874, household 643, Page Maxfield family; digital images, Ancestry (ancestry.com : accessed 9 November 2012); NARA microfilm record group M653; Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration.
9Ninth Census of the United States: 1870, population, Goshen, Sullivan County, New Hampshire, roll 850, p. 509A, household 63, Harvey P. Maxfield family; digital images, Ancestry (ancestry.com : accessed 8 February 2013); NARA microfilm record group M593; Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration.
10"Vital Records of Massachusetts, 1841-1910," vol. 280, p. 229, e. 286, Lynn Marriages, 1876; Maxfield-Southwick.
11Tenth Census of the United States: 1880, population, Goshen, Sullivan County, New Hampshire, enumeration district (ED) 269, roll 768, p. 317A, household 12, Harvey P. Maxfield family; digital images, Ancestry (ancestry.com : accessed 13 March 2013); NARA microfilm publication T9, Record Group 29. National Archives, Washington, D.C.
12"Walden Takes a Hand," Milwaukee Sentinel, 10 October 1896; 19th Century Newspapers (infotrac.galegroup.com : accessed 24 June 2024). p. 3; also "Dr. Creighton On Hand," 12 October 1896; p. 8. And "Bishop Walden Coming," 15 October 1896; p. 10.
13Wisconsin Death Records, 1959-2004, no. 02374, Harvey P. Maxfield, 1899.
141900 Census, Stevens Point, Portage County, Wisconsin, ED 112, p. 4A, household 75, Laura Maxfield boarding house.
15Thirteenth Census of the United States: 1910, population, Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, California, enumeration district (ED) 187, p. 4A, household 100, Laura A. Maxfield family; digital images, Ancestry (ancestry.com : accessed 2 October 2017); NARA group T624, Record Group 29. National Archives, Washington, D.C.
16Fourteenth Census of the United States: 1920, population, Los Angeles Assembly District 61, Los Angeles County, California, enumeration district (ED) 119, p. 8A, household 200, Laura Maxfield family; digital images, Ancestry (ancestry.com : accessed 9 February 2014); NARA microfilm record group T625, Record Group 29. National Archives, Washington, D.C.
171900 Census, Milwaukee, Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, ED 151, p. 12B, household 245, Herman Maxfield family.
18"Woman in Strange Case Proves Daughter of Mrs. Betsy Mayhew," Commonwealth, (Fond du Lac, Fond du Lac County, Wisconsin) 27 November 1912; Newspaper Archive (newspaperarchive.com : accessed 3 October 2016). p. 2.
19"Brands Story False," Commonwealth (Fond du Lac, Fond du Lac County, Wisconsin), 29 November 1912; Newspaper Archive (newspaperarchive.com : accessed 3 October 2016). p. 6.
201910 Census, Milwaukee, Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, ED 189, p. :2A, household 28, Herman H. Maxfield family. 1920 Census, Milwaukee, Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, ED 199, p. 4A, household 81, Herman Maxfield family. Fifteenth Census of the United States: 1930, population, Milwaukee, Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, enumeration district (ED) 40-408, p. 41B, Herman Maxfield family; digital images, Ancestry (ancestry.com : accessed 25 June 2024); NARA record Group T626. Seventeenth Census of the United States, 1950, population, Milwaukee, Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, enumeration district (ED) 73-604, p. 31, dwelling 317, Herman E. Maxfield family; digital images, Ancestry (ancestry.com : accessed 17 November 2022); Record Group 29. National Archives at Washington, DC., Washington, DC.
21French, Harry Dana. Descendants of John Maxfield of Salisbury, Mass., New Hampshire Historical Society Library, Concord, New Hampshire, about 1952.
22Wisconsin Death Records, 1959-2004, Herman Maxfield, 1955.
23Cook County Clerk. Cook County Courthouse, Chicago, Illinois, Cook County, Illinois, Marriages, 1871-1968, certificate 144098, Maxfield-Mayhew, 1889; digital images, Family Search (familysearch.org : accessed 3 September 2023).
241900 Census, Milwaukee, Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, ED 151, p. 12B, household 245, Herman Maxfield family.
25Wisconsin Department of Health Services. Madison, Wisconsin, Wisconsin, Marriage Records, 1820-2004, Maxfield-Bentz, 1907; digital images, Ancestry (: datsbase 6 April 2023); ancestry.com.
26United States Social Security Administration, "Social Security Applications and Claims, 1936-2007," database, Ancestry (ancestry.com : accessed 21 August 2015), Millie Maxfield, 398444124. Wisconsin Death Records, 1959-2004, Millie Maxfield, 1963.
271910 Census, Grand Rapids, Wood County, Wisconsin, ED 193, p. 9B; roll 1742, dwelling 16, household 16, Sidney Burrows family.
28French, Harry Dana. Descendants of John Maxfield of Salisbury, Mass.
29California Department of Health Services, Center for Health Statistics, Sacramento, California, "California Death Index, 1940-1997," database, Ancestry (ancestry.com : accessed 15 August 2017), Florence Maxfield Beck, 1942.
30California County Marriages, 1850-1953, Orange County, p. 323, Beck-Maxfield, 1930; digital images, Family Search (familysearch.org : accessed 16 October 2023).
31Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Glendale), Glendale, Los Angeles County, California, Find a Grave, digital images (findagrave.com : database 18 July 2013), Victor James Beck; created by Chris Mills; maintained by Find A Grave.
32Wisconsin Department of Health Services. Madison, Wisconsin, "Wisconsin, U.S., Birth Records, 1812-1921," database, Ancestry (ancestry.com : accessed 5 April 2023), (not named) Maxfield, no. 02685.
33Forest Cemetery, Stevens Point, Portage County, Wisconsin, Find a Grave, digital images (findagraave : dtabase 18 April 2023), Frank H Maxfield; Created by: Jonelle.
California County Marriages, 1850-1953. Digital images. Family Search. familysearch.org : 2023.
California Department of Health and Welfare. California Vital Records. "California Death Index, 1905-1939." Ancestry. ancestry.com : 2023.
________. "California Death Index, 1940-1997." Database. Ancestry. ancestry.com : 2017.
Commonwealth. Fond du Lac, Fond du Lac County, Wisconsin. November 1912.
Cook County Clerk. Cook County Courthouse, Chicago, Illinois. Cook County, Illinois, Marriages, 1871-1968. Digital images. Family Search. familysearch.org : 2023.
Forest Cemetery, Stevens Point, Portage County, Wisconsin. Find a Grave. Digital images. findagraave : 2023.
Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Glendale), Glendale, Los Angeles County, California. Find a Grave. Digital images. findagrave.com : 2013.
French, Harry Dana. Descendants of John Maxfield of Salisbury, Mass. New Hampshire Historical Society Library, Concord, New Hampshire, about 1952.
Massachusetts Archives. "Vital Records of Massachusetts, 1841-1910." Digital images. American Ancestors. americanancestors.org : 2017.
Mill Village Cemetery, Goshen, Sullivan County, New Hampshire. Find a Grave. Digital images. findagrave.com : 2017.
Milwaukee Sentinel. Milwaukee, Wisconsin. October 1896.
Nelson, Walter R. History of Goshen, New Hampshire. Concord, New Hampshire: Evans, 1957.
United States Department of the Census. Eighth Census of the United States: 1860, population. Digital images. Ancestry. ancestry.com : 2012.
________. Ninth Census of the United States: 1870, population. Digital images. Ancestry. ancestry.com : 2013.
________. Tenth Census of the United States: 1880, population. Digital images. Ancestry. ancestry.com : 2013.
________. Twelth Census of the United States: 1900, population. Digital images. Ancestry. ancestry.com : 2014.
________. Thirteenth Census of the United States: 1910, population. Digital images. Ancestry. ancestry.com : 2017.
________. Fourteenth Census of the United States: 1920, population. Digital images. Ancestry. ancestry.com : 2014.
________. Fifteenth Census of the United States: 1930, population. Digital images. Ancestry. ancestry.com : 2024.
________. Seventeenth Census of the United States, 1950, population. Digital images. Ancestry. ancestry.com : 2022.
United States Social Security Administration. "Social Security Applications and Claims, 1936-2007." Database. Ancestry ancestry.com : 2015.
Wisconsin Department of Health Services. Madison, Wisconsin. "Wisconsin, U.S., Birth Records, 1812-1921." Database. Ancestry. ancestry.com : 2023.
________. Wisconsin Death Records, 1959-2004. Digital images. Ancestry. ancestry.com : 2023.
________. Marriage Records, 1820-2004. Digital images. Ancestry : 2023.
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