Robert Hammond Landers - Robert Hammond Landers' two wives: 1st, Lydia Smith, and 2nd, Sarah Jane Richardson, both of Phillips, Franklin County, Maine.

@ Robert Hammond Landers, born on July 25, 1829, in Falmouth, Massachusetts, went to sea when he was a young boy, perhaps around the age of eleven or twelve. I don't know, as none of Robert's writings, either at that time or at a later period, much older, of his life when he returned to the sea as a sea-captain, sailing to the Orient and and back. Unfortunately, any journal that he would have kept has been lost or perhaps went to one of this children, but not to his son, Frederick Hammond Landers, father of my dad, Neal Hammond Landers. After Robert returned home from the sea in his early years, he visited his sister, Theresa M. Landers, who had married and was living in Boston, Massachusetts. My dad did not know how long Robert visited there, and how he happened to travel to Phillips, Franklin County, Maine. There might have been extended family members who had moved there. Perhaps Theresa mentioned Phillips to him. In my parents and my research so far, I have not discovered when he arrived in Phillips, but he is not on the U.S. 1850 Federal Census, but perhaps it was sometime either later that year, but, certainly before he married (1st) Lydia Smith, daughter Deacon John and Sarah Smith, of Phillips, Maine. Lydia was born on February 2, 1828, and on January 30, 1855, she and Robert Hammond Landers were married. They had a son, Elisha Covel/Covil(l) Landers (named for Robert H. Landers' mother, Phebe Raymond Covel/Covil(l)'s first husband, ? Covil(l), born on November 5, 1855 This was their only child, as she died on March 16, 1859, when Elisha C., was only 3 years, 4 months, and 11 days old. Robert hired a young woman, Sarah Jane Richardson, also of Phillips to take of his son and to keep the house running, as he was unable to because he was part-owner of the local gristmill. On March 1, 1860, Sarah Jane Richardson and Robert Hammond Landers weere married in Phillips. This was before the 1860 U.S. Federal Census for Phillips, Franklin County, Maine was taken on June 1, 1860. [Ancestry.com: Microfilm Roll Number:M653_435; Page:10673; Image:482; Image Filmstrip 10 of 44]. There is nothing on this Census that indicates that Sarah J. [Jane] Landers is the Step-mother of Elisha [C.] Landers, Not his biographical mother. I hope this information will help straighten out mistakes that I have seen where assumptions have been made that Elisha C. Landers was the son of Sarah Jane Richardson Landers. Joan E. Landers