Illegitimate Walls

One of the challenges of genealogy is determining which children were born to which parents, particularly if names were reused often.  One of my great-grandfathers, for example, had an elder brother who'd named one of his sons with the same name, so it took me some time to sort out out the families.

The only thing worse than trying to untangle generations of children with the same name are identifying children who were born out of wedlock.  Having a "base-born" or "bastard" child was frowned upon by both society and the Church, and so families often went to great lengths to cover up such occurrences.

One of my earliest paternal ancestors was Joseph Seddon, born sometime around 1814.  His baptism record from St. Mary the Virgin Church in Eccles, Lancashire reads: "April 10 1814, Joseph, bastard son of Sarah Seddon of Monton".  No father is indicated, and with mandatory birth registration still 23 years away I knew it wouldn't be easy to get more facts.

A few quick searches told me that Sarah's parents were Joseph Seddon and Sarah Lansdale of Eccles.  So Sarah had an illegitimate child, named him for either her father or an elder brother, and assigned him her surname.  There's little to go on here.

Five years later, she married James Partington, a cotton weaver, at St. Mary the Virgin Church in Prestwich: "18 July 1819, James Partington and Sarah Seddon were Married in this Church, by Banns, by me J. J. Kirkbank". James Partington signed the document but Sarah only marked an X with her name being written in by the priest, clearly indicating that she was illiterate.  By the 1841 England Census, Sarah Partington is living on her own in Monton with a 15-year-old son.  Records determined that by this time, her firstborn son Joseph Seddon had two half-brothers with the name Partington.

Could James Partington have been Joseph Seddon's father?  On the marriage record, Sarah Seddon is mentioned to be from Outwood, Surrey even though her baptism and census information clearly show her to be from Monton, Eccles.  This discrepancy might have been an attempt to conceal that they'd already had a child together.  Or this could have been a research error on my part and the aforementioned marriage is a different couple with the same names, but I could find no other matching records at the time.

An obvious counter-indication is the length of time between the births of Joseph and his half-brothers.  Seven years is very long between births, particularly in the 1800s.  One would think that Joseph Seddon's father would've married Sarah quickly at the behest of the families rather than disappear.  Then again, we have these possible scenarios:
1. The father abandoned both Sarah and the child for some reason. 
2. Sarah herself kept the baby's father completely off the record to protect him from her family's wrath.
3. Sarah and the child's father were closely related and therefore couldn't legally register the child together.

In any case, I was still no further ahead so next I tried a different tack.  Sometimes, parents of illegitimate children went to court after they married to legitimize their offspring so the child could inherit.  However, there seems to be no such record that I could find for Joseph Seddon.  That made it more unlikely that the father could be James Partington.

Still, some information about the father had to exist.  According to the law at the time, if a marriage was not forthcoming, the other parent could be forced to enter into a bond to pay for the subsequent maintenance of the child.  This is known as a Bastardy Bond or Indemnity Bond.  The municipality of Salford (in which the community of Eccles is included) does have bastardy documents, but they aren't available online and I highly doubt they would allow overseas borrowing of microfilms.  Short of finding a researcher in the area who would look it up for me, it was a major roadblock.

I might never find out who my ancestor's real father was.  But I remain thankful that his name has carried down the generations to someone who cares enough about the family history to go looking.

Past Lives: New Horton

A tiny red building with a sign saying "New Horton School 1934-1961" stands near Provincial Highway 915 in Albert County, about an hour's drive north of Moncton.  New Horton and its sister community Upper New Horton are located between the marshes on the west shore of Chignecto Bay and New Horton Lake.

The area is believed to have been first settled in 1798 by people who migrated from Horton, Nova Scotia.  (The township of Horton NS no longer exists as such; its approximate location is in the vicinity of Grand Pré and Wolfsville, King's County.) 

Following the Acadian Deportation of the 1750s and 1760s, both shores of Chignecto Bay were quickly populated by Loyalists from New England and Irish immigrants.  Farming settlements sprang up as more land became available; by the mid-1800s the area around New Horton supported a population of about 150 people, and the town itself boasted a post office and church.  Historical maps show that at one point, much of the acreage west of the town was owned by two men: Robert Dickson and Jesse Converse.

Like so many of its contemporaries, the community dwindled as farm automation made menial workers unnecessary, families became smaller, and people moved elsewhere in search of better opportunities.  Today the area comprises a few farms, cottages, a bird sanctuary, and campgrounds.  A great deal of the farmland has returned to forest, and a kilometer-long body of water noted on maps as Long Marsh Lake is now mostly dry - likely a casualty of climate change-related drought.


* Photo courtesy of Andrew MacDonald, 2019

Past Lives: Newtown

On Highway 890 about 10 kilometers north of Sussex in Studholm Parish is the community of Newtown, New Brunswick.  It was founded in approximately 1854 and was known as Upper Smiths Creek, for the creek that flows through the area.  Major landowners at the time included names such as Coates, Goslin, and Stockton.  A part of the settlement was called Mace District for the Mace brothers who established a mill there.

For reasons currently unknown, the place was renamed Newton in 1867 and renamed again in 1892 to Newtown.  By 1898 Newtown was a farming community with a post office, general store, two grist mills, a sawmill, and a church; its population was 275.  On the 1911 census the area was enumerated as part of Studholm Parish with no reference to the name of the town.

The pictured United Church was erected in 1897 and has stood in the same location for over a century.  It has been many years since the building was used but it's still being maintained, perhaps by nearby neighbours or the community at large.

Further east up the road one can also see the Newtown Public Hall built in 1911, the Anderson's Country Vacation Farm bed and breakfast, and the Oldfield Covered Bridge Park.

*Photo courtesy of Greg Scribner, 2018

Doing One's Best

My father passed away on March 31st.

One of my happiest childhood memories of him is bacon and eggs.  On Sunday mornings he was frequently the first out of bed and he would make bacon and fried eggs for the family. (One of the few meals he could cook well.)

A favourite TV character said that we might think we're the heroes in our own story but the reality is that there are no heroes or villains, just people doing the best they can.  Dad did the best he could with what he had.  He overcame a difficult childhood and applied himself to every decision and career move that he made.

He worked on the Saint Lawrence River Seaway, something he was always proud of despite the menial job that he occupied: cutting and threading steel rods for construction.  He joined the Air Force, but after three years he recognized his limitations and chose to become a teacher instead; a career at which he excelled.

Despite his success he never forgot the people around him.  Family and friends were important.  He went above and beyond for his students, many of whom would in later years describe him as their favourite teacher.

And he would push me to do my best as well.  When I was eleven years old he took me out to the back yard one day and "introduced" me to the lawnmower, giving me precise instructions on how to operate it and how I should care for the yard.  I took that to heart: I mowed the grass regularly right up until the day before I was married.

People who have the ability to bring out the best in others are rare.  My father was one such.  He will be missed dearly.

Past Lives: Nelson Parish

Hugging the south bank of the Southwest Miramichi River in Northumberland County New Brunswick is a lonely stretch of Highway 118 in Nelson Parish.  The parish was established in 1814 and named for Vice Admiral Horatio Nelson for his victory at the Battle of Trafalgar.  Several communities were quickly hewn out of the thick forest along the river, including Doyles Brook, Upper Nelson, McKinleyville, and Chelmsford.

Many such settlements were little more than adjacent strips of property on the river that stretched back into the bush, and depended on farming, fishing, and lumbering for their livelihood.  When the railway was constructed a few became flag stations, connecting them to the rest of the province at large and enabling them to better trade their goods.

One building in McKinleyville that stands out has a sign on it: LOL No. 147, 1906.  This was once the meeting hall for the local chapter of the Loyal Orange Lodge, properly known as the Grand Orange Lodge of British America, which is a Protestant fraternal organization.  John A. MacDonald, Canada's first Prime Minister, was known to be an Orange Order member.

The parish was sparsely inhabited to begin with; although at its peak there were about 1000 people living in the area, during the latter half of the twentieth century the population dwindled.  The railway no longer passes through, and a local photographer who recently drove along Highway 118 commented that there seemed to be more abandoned structures than inhabited ones.

Today Miramichi is the main urban centre of the parish and boasts quite a few natural and historic sites such as the French Fort Cove nature park, the Water Street Historic District, and St. Michael's Basilica.

*Photo courtesy of Paul Dunn, 2016.

Past Lives: Black River

In Simonds Parish of Saint John County, New Brunswick lies the village of Black River.  It was founded in 1853 by some of the first Irish and black families to settle in the area and quickly became known for its shipbuilding facilities at the mouth of the nearby river that bears the same name.

A scandal erupted in 1869 when the remains of a woman and child were found near Black River Road by men who were picking blueberries.  The ensuing investigation found that a respectable architect from the city of Saint John had an extramarital affair with a young woman who had a child by him, and he killed them both in an attempt to keep it secret.  The man was tried, convicted, and executed by hanging.

By 1898 Black River and its surroundings was a thriving farming and fishing settlement with a post office, store, sawmill, two churches and a population of 200.  Prominent business and property owners included families named Matthews, Connacher, Power, and Hawkes.

At the corner of present-day County Road 825 and Duffy Road sits the St. Patrick's Catholic Church and adjoining cemetery.  One of its first priests was Father Andrew Barron who included the church in his circuit from Saint John.  Unfortunately due to the steep decline of the number of parishoners in recent years, the building has fallen into disrepair and is slated to be demolished.

The area has now mostly gone back to forest except for a few farms, gravel pits, and a community club.  A large concrete and stone wharf in the river is a remnant of what was once one of the main industries.

*Photo courtesy of Debbie Hamilton-Bernard, 2016

A Family Homestead

The town of Montreal South was created from land of the Saint-Antoine-de-Longueuil Parish in 1888, and divided into building lots by developer George Parent.  In 1889 a station house was built for the Grand Trunk Railway tracks, connecting the community to Montreal.  The official incorporation as a town came in 1905 and in 1906 the newly-formed Montreal & Southern Country Railway built a trolley station to transport workers to the factories along the Lachine Canal.

The house at 16 Prefontaine Street was either built or purchased at around 1915 by Andrew Johnson, an immigrant from Stockholm, Sweden who had landed in Montreal in 1883 with his wife and young son.  His jobs as a day labourer and then a night watchman took him and his growing family to several locations around Montreal, until they settled on this quiet residential street in the suburbs.

Andrew's second-youngest daughter Clara was married in 1923 to John William Mayo, himself an immigrant from Manchester, England.  Soon after starting their own family, they bought the house from her father in 1928, and it has remained in the Mayo name since.

Originally the building was a single-story house, but in the early 1930s a second floor was added in order to accommodate the increasing needs of the family.  A long-running story claims that enough wood was used in the construction to build two similar houses.  In the mid 1960s the house was divided into two apartments, upstairs and downstairs.

As with many present-day families, the current generation of Mayo children who grew up on Prefontaine Street now have their own homes and lives.  The old homestead is in need of a great deal of restoration, but sadly there isn't the money to do it.  As of this writing the house has been put on the market, and it's likely that a new owner will decide that instead of fixing it, it would be cheaper to tear the house down and build new.

The home that sheltered four generations might soon be destroyed but it will not be forgotten.

Here's an article about the history of Montreal South.