ILLEGITIMATE BIRTHS IN GLOUCESTER, MA, 1855 – 1894
https://gloucester-ma.gov/DocumentCenter/View/5054/IllegitimateBirths?bidId=
290 pages of material here
at the beginning is a good overview of the situation
overall - 1% of births were "illegitimate" during the period
very interesting information
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William was an unmarried twenty-three year old blacksmith when his
daughter was stillborn. He quickly left Gloucester to attend college,
obtained a medical degree and opened a practice in a nearby town.
Apart from a few years as a medical officer during World War I he
remained there for the rest of his life and never married.
Edward was a forty-six year old clergyman when he succumbed to
temptation and fathered a child out of wedlock. At the time both he
and the child's mother, Delia, were married to other people. In fact,
Edward had been the officiating minister at Delia's wedding. She
apparently became so enamored of him that she left her husband and
followed Edward out of town when he moved to a new congregation. Two
years later she returned to Gloucester, pregnant and destitute. She
stayed at the Poor House until her husband took her back and the baby,
a boy, died as her husband's son a few months later. Edward left the
ministry for a brief time, finding work as a traveling salesman in
toiletries, but was once again a clergyman when he died at the age of
eighty
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