Captain George Peva
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Captain George Peva
compiled by James Peva


 


George Peva, the second son of William Peva and Sophronia Norris, was born 1 April 1838, in Windsor, Kennebec, Maine,
and died on 13 November 1901 in Evansville, Vanderburgh, Indiana.

George and his older brother Joseph, both worked as teenagers in their uncle Elbridge Norris' shipyard in Damariscotta,
Maine.  George made at least one around-the-world voyage in a clipper ship he had helped to build before giving up the sea
and coming to Indiana in 1838 with Ben Carson, possibly a shipmate, to become a farmer. He and Ben Carson were very
close and they married sisters, (the Moore sisters), who were from the Evansville, IN area, (possibly Henderson, Kentucky,
just across the Ohio River).  Ben Carson was referred to as "Uncle Ben," by George's children, Richard and Lenora.  When
my father was born in 1901, Ben Carson promised Richard Peva, my grandfather, a garden push-plow if he would name the
child after him, so my father was named "Robert Carson Peva."

Joseph, George's brother, became a merchant seaman (carpenter), and settled in Liverpool, England, where he married Ann
McCarthey and had at least two daughters.  Joseph was lost at sea in 1865.

George enlisted in Company F, 60th Regiment of the Indiana Infantry Volunteers, on December 16, 1861, to serve three years,
or during the war.  During his period of service he was captured by the Confederates and held for a time as a prisoner of war.
His health was seriously affected by this experience and he later said that in order to survive, the prisoners would pick
undigested corn kernels out of horse manure and cook them for food.

George Peva was discharged from the enlisted ranks, with the rank of Sergeant, on January 6, 1864, by reason of his
promotion to 1st Lieutenant, Co. F, 60th Regt., Indiana Infantry Volunteers, and he was later, on June 25, 1864, promoted to
Captain.  He was referred to for the rest of his life, as "Captain Peva."

George and Isa Jane Moore had one child, William Wesley Peva, on January 29, 1866, who died in infancy, on November 27,
1867.  Isa Jane Moore died of "pulmonary consumption," on October 19, 1871.  George married Susan Adelaide McDowell
on March 25, 1873.  He belonged to the Masonic Order and was a successful farmer.  Kenneth McCutchan, his grandson,
remembers George's widow, his grandmother, referring to her late husband as "Mr. Peavey."
 

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