Stetson family.

The collection contains the business records and personal papers of three generations of the Stetson family of Bangor, Maine. It centers primarily on materials of George Stetson, his sons Isaiah Kidder and Edward Stetson, and Isaiah's son Irving G. Stetson. The Stetson family was engaged in various industries in the Bangor area including lumbering, shipping, slate mining, banking, and the ice trade.

George Stetson was born in Hampden, Maine on January 25, 1807. He moved to Bangor in 1834. In 1862 he was elected to the Maine legislature, serving two terms. He married Adeline Hamlin in 1845 and had four children: George Hamlin, born in 1846; Edward, born in 1854; Isaiah Kidder, born in 1858; and Mary Adeline, born in 1860. He died on June 15, 1891.

Edward Stetson was born in Bangor on June 22, 1854. In 1879 he married Edith H. Lobdell; they had one son, Clarence Cutting, born in 1884. He died on February 17, 1913.

Isaiah Kidder Stetson was born in Bangor on April 3, 1858. He was treasurer of the University of Maine Board of Trustees and of the Hampden Academy. A Republican, he was elected to the Maine House of Representatives in 1896, became House Speaker in 1899, and served terms in 1903 and 1905 as state senator from Penobscot County. He married Clara C. Sawyer in 1882; they had two children: Ruth W., born July 22, 1884, and Irving Gay, born November 23, 1885. He died on July 14, 1940.

Irving G. Stetson was in the logging and lumber business in Maine for many years. In 1913, Irving Stetson married Eleanor Strickland, the daughter of Frederick Hastings and Charlotte Coombs Strickland. He died June 6, 1969.