Lydia Ann Foss

The documentation we have points to his father being a John Garvey and his mother being Lydia Ann Foss, both born in Houlton, Maine. Lydia Ann Foss, was the daughter of John Foss and Mary Ann Bailey. Lydia probably had a sister named Mary Ann Foss who married Major Lewis Merriam Jr. who fought bravely with in the Civil War

The first mention of a Messr Bailey in Houlton Maine is in an 1884 historical narrative by an “old pioneer” and gives us a flavor of the times our earliest Maine ancestors lived in: [… The timber] business was destined to become the stable of the country, and created a demand for more labor than this new country could then supply, and this, with the team power which was required to clear off the heavy growth, to [bring] development of the resources of this virgin soil, called for horses and oxen, which were furnished from the counties of Penobscot and Kennebec, by people from Bangor and vicinity, viz: Messrs. Gordon, Holyoke, Dudley, Webster, Bailey, and others, who came through with droves, following up the Penobscot and Mattawamkeag rivers to within some twenty-five miles of Houlton, thence following a spotted line through. Those drovers made this trade in stock an object of speculation. They not only understood, with Yankee shrewdness how to buy and sell animals, but they soon evinced not a little sagacity in the manner of transporting goods, which they did by fastening packs upon the neck and horns of the oxen, as well as upon the backs of horses, which proved a successful device. Their goods sold at a greater profit than the stock …