Research Interests Forum Entry for JOHN BARRETT at STOCKPORT, CHESHIRE, ENGLAND

Contact: Marilyn Sigler
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Research Interest: My great-grandfather was born in Stockport, Cheshire, England in October of 1842. His parents'names were Phebe Barrett and Thomas Barrett. It has been passed down in the family that John was a twin. John was a mechanical engineer for steam engines. He worked on a steamship going to Canada and from there he went south and joined the Civil War on the side of the Union in St. Louis, Missouri. He served in the artillery for all of the years of the war. After the war, he went to West Springfield, Massachusetts where he settled. He married first to Elizabeth Whatmore and had 11 children. His first son was Luke and he had a daughter by her named Phebe. His second wife was my great- grandmother, Helen Ellen Josephine Doherity. They were married in Springfield, MA in a Methodist Episcopal church in April of 1886. John and Ellen had five children Mary Ann Mamie Elizabeth Catherine my grandmother , born in Rockville, CT in 1895 John Emerline Emily and Franklin Robert Barrett , who was a sailor on the battleship Delaware during WWI. John and Ellen got a divorce after John deserted her and went back to England. He later married an English woman 39 years his junior and he had nine more children. His youngest children, a daughter Grace and a daughter Helen Josephine, are still living and live in Massachusetts. John Harrison Barrett is buried in a the Bellvue veterans' cemetery in Lawrence, Massachusetts. His first and third wives are buried with him. We want to di scover where his second wife Ellen, my great-grandmother, is buried. Ellen was born in England too, and her parents were James Doherity and his wife, Mary surname unknown . John Barrett was living on Lynn Street in Milton, MA at the time of his d eath. He lived to be almost 100 years old and his last job was helping to restore the steam engines on the USS Constitution in Boston's harbor. His third wife's name was Elizabeth Barry Bateson, who was a widow with a baby daughter when John marri ed her. I would welcome any help in locating John's family in England or the family of Helen Josephine Doherity. We also have been unable to locate any of John's descendants from his first wife. I am in contact with several descendants of his thi rd wife, but they have no more information than I do.