Ebook The Life and Work of Sir Hiram Maxim

Hiram Stevens Maxim claimed French Huguenot ancestors, who, said he, had been driven from France by the edict of Nantes and who finally settled in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, U.S.A., after having taken habitation for a while in Canterbury, Kent, England. His grandfather, born in Wareham, Massachusetts, experienced many vicissitudes before he could complete possession of a small tract of land along the shores of Androscoggin Lake, where he and his wife, Eliza Rider, long dwelt peacefully with their seven children. The youngest of these was Isaac Weston Maxim, who, after having worked in different localities and at various employments, decided to settle at Sangerville, Maine, where he married Harriet Boston Stevens, the daughter of Deacon Stevens of Abbott Upper Village.