Raven Descendants Arrival
The migration path for the descendants of William Neal Raven was from New Brunswick, Canada to Aroostook County, Maine in the late 1800s. A sizable group moved south again in the very early 1900s and established a major presence in Waldo County, Maine that continues today.
Selena (Raven) Merry moved to Thorndike, Maine with her second husband, Herbert Leslie Merry, and their three children. Some of the Carson children from her first marriage to George Albert Carson made their way to Waldo County, too.
Evelyn (Farley) Raven died in 1903 and William Henry Raven passed in 1904, leaving both John Edward Raven and his sister-in-law, Rose (Farley) Raven widowed. They married in 1905 creating a very large blended family of Ravens. John and Rose moved to Knox, Maine in 1910 and brought most of those children south with them:
- Ethel M. (Raven) Buzzell
- Etta M. (Raven) Abbott
- Ida V. (Raven) Boulter
- Lettie V. (Raven) Randall
- Ernest E. Raven
- Mattie (Raven) Knowles
- Perley W. Ravin
- Irving H. Ravin
- Lila A. (Raven) Scott
- Herman B. Raven
- Hazel F. (Raven) Woodbury
Dorothy M. "Dot" Moody was born in Knox in 1911 and William Henry Raven II moved there in 1917.
Lettie Randall moved right back to Aroostook County and married Henry Randall in September 1910 and Perley Ravin eventually moved to New Hampshire, but the rest of them stayed in Waldo County/Central Maine for the rest of their lives.
Knox Pentecostal Meetings
In either 1917 or 1919 (it's hard to make out on our copy of the certificate), John Edward Raven went back north to Washburn, Maine to be ordained as a Pentecostal Minister. When he returned home, he started holding Pentecostal meetings in Knox at the schoolhouse on the Bailey Road by Knox Stream. Some of his grandchildren discuss those meetings in this 2008 video: https://youtu.be/wG_z__0-yxk
Daniel Rideout, a Pentecostal historian, passed along the following in April 2024:
The following Historical Notes of the Knox Ridge Pentecostal Assembly, were derived from Sis. Dorothy Moody, daughter of Bro. John Raven. With God's Help ONLY, Bro. John Raven started the Work in Knox.
Bro. John Raven started the meetings in the Schoolhouse, lot of people got Saved.
The town gave him the big church (or Schoolhouse) on the Ridge.
Sis. Dorothy remembered the Wadsworth & Davis Familys coming there each Sun.
The Knox Stream Schoolhouse.
They took down the Schoolhouse & built church across the Road.
Knox Ridge Church
Little small church on the Road Nora-?? Hansons lived on.
Some of these people attended these different places (must have meant Schoolhouse & ch):
Alfreda & Bertha Bailey
Nathan & Florence Davis (children: Mildred, Madelene & Harold)
Ida Boulter & Etta Abbott (sisters)
Bro. John & Sis Rose Ann Raven
Lottie Archer (married George Carson)
Oakley & Julia Giles
Elden Vose & Chesley Ingraham
Eben & Minnie Vose
Little Nora McLellan (came to Dot's house & stayed)
Hattie Gildcrest (Pearl Blenis' mother)
People from the Hill Dale Baptist Church came to the Knox Ridge church
Clara Wadsworth (married Joe Bryant) — their son married one of Dot's father's girls, Lila. [they held a ____ service in every June & lived in Belfast?]
These ___?___ preachers
These people came down from Aroostook County:
Bro. Nelson Magoon
Bro. Harold Bickford
Bro. Charlie Flewelling
Ma & Pa Sweeney
Correction on this line:
"Clara Wadsworth (married Joe Bryant) — their son married one of Dot's father's girls, Lila."
Should read something like:
"Clara and Joe's son, Omar Bryant, married Lila Raven, the daughter of Dot's half-brother, William Henry Raven".
The Hansons mentioned may have been relatives of John Edward Raven's mother, Hannah Jane (Hanson) Raven. John's cousin, Robert Hanson, moved south to Knox from Wade Plantation at about the same time as John and was living with John and Rose in Knox at the time of the 1930 census.
The earliest mentions of "Knox Pentecostal" that I can find in the newspapers are from 1937. John and Rose moved to Monroe, Maine in 1936, but he would still sometimes preach at the Knox meetings.
