NORWAY – Patricia Shearman began her duties as register of deeds for Oxford County’s Paris office on Monday.
For the swearing-in ceremony Thursday at her home by Dedimus Justice Shirley Boyce, she surrounded herself with family history. The oath of office came 223 years after her ancestor Job Prince filed the first family property deed in Oxford County in 1788.
“I wanted to have symbolic reminders of the tradition of service and appreciation of talent and imagination that runs throughout my family history and the history of the state of Maine,” Shearman said when asked about the family portraits around her.
Shearman said one was of her great-great-great-great-grandfather Thomas Bolton of Portland. He was an edge-tool maker and a member of the Maine Charitable Mechanics Association and also served in the War of 1812, she said. Her great-great-great-great-grandmother Martha Noble Bolton was another portrait on display.
Shearman also decided to be sworn in holding an 1888 book titled “Poets of Maine” given to her recently by Michelle St. Pierre of Buckfield.
“She found it in a used book sale,” explained Shearman, who has a master’s degree in American and New England Studies from the University of Southern Maine. “It belonged to my great-great-great-aunt Ardelia Prince of Buckfield.
Shearman said that according to the 1915 History of Buckfield by Alfred Cole and Charles F. Whitman, Ardelia was “the most cultivated woman in town.” Born in 1835, Shearman said Ardelia was on the first Board of Trustees of the Zadoc Long Free Library and a graduate of the Oxford Liberal Institute. She was a daughter of the Honorable Noah Prince who was a state senator from Oxford County and president from 1851-1852.
Shearman won election in November to the post that was vacated by retiring Jane Rich.
Shearman is a former small business owner with experience in management and financial oversight of publicly funded programs. She was instrumental in bringing public access television to Norway-Paris and has taught adult education, video production, as well as producing informational videos for countywide nonprofits. She is active in area historical societies and is currently chairwoman of the task force working to restore the historic Gingerbread House in Norway.
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