Henrietta Wood must have assumed she would never marry. Then at the age of 51, she went from being a spinster in Winthrop to a matron in Farmington. For the next 40 years, she left her mark here.

Henrietta grew up in Winthrop in a well-to-do family. She gained the best education a young woman in New England could hope for in the first half of the 19th century.

After attending public school in her hometown, she received a degree from Gorham Seminary around 1845 and then pursued a career in teaching.

In a spirit of adventure, she accepted a job as governess for a wealthy plantation owner in Kentucky where she lived for six years before returning home.

Henrietta probably knew Joseph Fairbanks all her life. Fairbanks also grew up in Winthrop, was only four years older than Henrietta, and the two were related through Joseph’s mother.

Their paths no doubt crossed often when they were young but then took very different directions for much of their adult lives.

About the time Henrietta left Maine for distant Kentucky, Joseph left Winthrop to settle in Farmington.

Six years later, Henrietta returned to Winthrop, about the time Joseph married Susan Belcher in Farmington.

For more than 20 years, Henrietta lived a solitary life in Winthrop while Joseph raised two daughters, ran a successful downtown shoe store and served in the Maine Legislature.

Then in 1875 Susan died, leaving Joseph a widower with daughters, Mittie, 20, and Charlotte, 16.

Susan passed away in November, and in less than a year, Joseph and Henrietta were married.

Already in her 50s, Henrietta discovered a new life as Joseph’s wife, and mistress of a house on North Main Street in Farmington. They were husband and wife for 29 years, until Joseph passed away in 1905.

The house he and Henrietta shared had always been in his first wife’s family, and so it remained.

Joseph’s daughters retained ownership, and Henrietta went to live with another widow in Farmington.

Henrietta was already 80 years old at this time, but she had 14 more active years. She played hostess to Daughters of the American Revolution meetings, taught Sunday school, and campaigned for women’s right to vote.

“Her one great wish was that she might live to cast her first vote,” observed the author of her obituary in the Franklin Journal. Unfortunately, Henrietta died in 1919, a year too early. By then she was the oldest Mayflower descendant in the state, and the oldest member of the Congregational Church in Farmington.

Her funeral at the Old South Church drew distinguished military family members such as West Point graduate Col. Winthrop Wood as well as Farmington residents who bid farewell to one their community’s most prominent matrons.

Luann Yetter teaches writing at the University of Maine at Farmington, [email protected]. Additional research by UMF student Danielle LeBlanc.