Lydia Hartwell after Joseph's death in 1849

Upon the death of her husband Joseph in the Gold Rush in 1849, Lydia Parker Hartwell became a 29-year old widow living in Salem, Massachusetts, with her four young sons: Joseph b. 1839, William b. 1845 (my great-great-grandfather), George b. 1847 and Daniel b. 1849.

Lydia Hartwell's residence in Salem

According to the 1857 Salem City Directory, Lydia Hartwell, widow, lived at 7 Park in Salem.

Salem, Massachusetts, City Directory, 1857, Ancestry.com. U.S. City Directories, 1822-1995 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011.

I was able to locate an 1856 map of Salem created by Henry Francis Walling, and have pinpointed the location of Lydia's house below. Note the proximity to Salem Harbor - I think it likely that Lydia and her young boys lived there while Joseph was away at sea.

Map images from Walling, H. F., A topographical map of Essex County, Massachusetts (1856). Boston: Published by Smith and Morley, retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/2012592410/.

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Lydia remarries

On December 11, 1865, the widow Lydia Hartwell married the widower Joshua Nay in Salem, whose wife Sarah George had died the previous year.