Ben Ames Williams, author, was married to Florence Trafton Talpey of York, Me. (her father, grandfather, and great-grandfather were all sea captains). Together they had two sons and a daughter. While they lived in Chestnut Hill, near Boston, they vacationed at a summer home, a farm called Hardscrabble, near Searsmont, Me., which Williams used as the model for his town called Fraternity in his writings. The summer home was willed to him by Bert McCorrison, a person who shared Williams's love of the outdoors and who appeared in Williams's works as Chet McAusland, a resident of Fraternity.
From the description of Postcard of Hardscrabble, Searsmont, Maine, 1848 July 15. (Maine Historical Society Library). WorldCat record id: 759591677
