Youngest daughter of Capt. Levi Starbuck—master of the whaling ship Harlequin—and Elizabeth Ramsdell, Lydia married James F. Athearn, only son of James Athearn and Lydia Cary. Their house was dynamited during the Great Fire of 1846 on Nantucket, and their youngest son, Levi Starbuck Athearn, was born in New Bedford in 1848. Lydia's husband, like many Nantucketers, had a brief stint in the California goldfields before returning to Massachusetts. In 1859, Lydia was left with her four youngest children when James F. accompanied their oldest son and daughter-in-law to Kansas, and then served in the Civil War for a few months. By 1865, her older daughter had died and her two younger sons had left home; she lived the duration of her life in Cambridge with her younger daughter, Susan, apparently with financial assistance from her "brother" (technically her nephew), George H. Folger, and brother-in-law, Henry Coffin.
Youngest daughter of Capt. Levi Starbuck—master of the whaling ship Harlequin—and Elizabeth Ramsdell, Lydia married James F. Athearn, only son of James Athearn and Lydia Cary. Their house was dynamited during the Great Fire of 1846 on Nantucket, and their youngest son, Levi Starbuck Athearn, was born in New Bedford in 1848. Lydia's husband, like many Nantucketers, had a brief stint in the California goldfields before returning to Massachusetts. In 1859, Lydia was left with her four youngest children when James F. accompanied their oldest son and daughter-in-law to Kansas, and then served in the Civil War for a few months. By 1865, her older daughter had died and her two younger sons had left home; she lived the duration of her life in Cambridge with her younger daughter, Susan, apparently with financial assistance from her "brother" (technically her nephew), George H. Folger, and brother-in-law, Henry Coffin.
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