Uncle Peg’s Chronicles
March 21, 2024
“These
were their settlements. And they kept good family records.”[1]
Don’t
forget to look for the title which is embedded in the chronicle.
“Late Unhappy Dysensions”
FAMILY ALBUM
This photo made me smile this week. Graham Sylvestre made the
big 10. According to his Mum, Amy, he is a great big brother! It certainly
looks like it. Graham and his sibs are the children of Corey and Amy Sylvestre,
and are in the Charles R Holmes line.
1924 – 2024 CENTENNIAL WEEK TWELVE
GRATITUDE
I am grateful to Annmarie, Brett,
Grace, Jane, Jeanni, Marvin, and Ralph for their comments this week. I hope I
got everybody, there was a lot of communication, for which I am thankful. Thank
you for your faithfulness in spurring me on. Brett had pecan and Jeanni had
pork pi(e) – unfortunately, my cupboard was bare (of lemon pie filling). Brett
and Ralph are busy with the map – Ralph has made great strides in figuring out
all the things you can do with it. He has also helped me immensely to navigate
FamilySearch to find things I can’t find for looking. Annmarie made me laugh.
Thanks also for your icons on Facebook.
I
liked the idea of trying out your Mum’s brown bread recipe. So, having a bread
machine, I googled recipes for making brown bread in the machine. I tried one
that was very close to using the same ingredients as your Mum’s except it
didn’t include cornmeal or suggest all-bran. It came out soft, moist, and
tasty. However, the recipe called for 3 tsp of yeast and perhaps next time I
will use a bit less as the loaf burst the door of the machine open by the time
it was done. ~ Annmarie Holmes
MY GENEALOGY GOALS
- Chronicle
several times, and publish on Thursday morning.
- Make some
corrections in regards to last week’s chronicle.
- Keep
writing my next article for Generations, which is about the will of
Daniel Holmes.
- Spend
a bit of time on Moore family research: “Three Peas in a Moore Pod.”
- In
the evening, after chores are done, edit the Alf and Carrie Steeves family
genealogy.
- Index
old newspapers for NBGS. On hold.
- Index
Riverbank Visitors for NBGS. Put old newspapers on hold while I do this.
Mostly, I worked on the Carrie and Alf family
genealogy in the evenings, and the article by day. I am currently frustrated
with it. I have to write up the minutes of the genealogy meetings and start
looking for new members of our executive for the annual general meeting in May
– my least favourite job in that group. Bold to make me remember to do it.
1924 to
1928
Those are the
years that our great or great-great grandparents spent renewing relationships
that had somehow fallen by the wayside but with organization, letter writing,
and challenging travel – by hook or by crook – they managed to come together
again. They reacquainted and rediscovered their family ties. And then, one by
one, they died, and many of those ties died with them.
2024 to 2028
I
start this paragraph with a clean slate every week. I don’t know what I am
going to say ahead of time. That’s the challenge of it. Lately, I’ve had some
responses to the chronicles that provide the fodder I need. As I have told you
several times, I hated history in school. It
wasn’t until I started into genealogy that I developed a passion for it. I
suppose I generally talk about history from a Canadian perspective, coloured
differently now by what I now learn about history as to how it affected my
family. They didn’t teach us much NB history in grade school, and what they did
teach us, I figure, was skewed to the British take on things. I had a
discussion this week with an American cousin about terms that I use. Seems I
wasn’t too far off base – I called the Revolutionary War the Revolution. In New
Brunswick petitions to the crown for Loyalist reparations, the powers that be called the Revolutionary
War the “late unhappy dysensions.” Can’t get much more archaic Canadian than
that. (Loyalist
petition of Elias Snider. https://www.ancestry.ca/imageviewer/collections/3712/images/40939_307117-00006?pId=15477) Perspective
can be a juxtaposition. I am happy to be a United Empire Loyalist descendant.
Had I, a woman, lived in the American colonies during the Revolution, I don’t
know what side I would have chosen to be on. It’s a moot point, as I wasn’t,
and probably the male figure in my life would have chosen for me. Being a done
deal, I am satisfied to be who I am. Happy to share my corner of the world with
our indigenous peoples, returning Acadians, German planters, Loyalists, Scots
Irish Welch and English from Great Britain and area, and now people from every
corner of the globe. We are who we are, like it or
not. When Dad learned that half his roots were Irish, he was not one bit happy.
He was upset at my Uncle Gerry for unearthing that fact and telling him so. I’m
partly a Mourne Moore, and I don’t even own a green shirt to wear today, the
17th. In essence, I’m a mutt. I
didn’t learn this in school; in fact, I didn’t learn about it until I started
my obsession with genealogy and family history. In lower Canada, prior to the
arrival of the Loyalists, the British had recently expulsed the Acadian French
who wouldn’t sign away their heritage. Burned their homes and churches, broke
up families, and sent them sailing in all different directions. Americans know
them as Cajuns in Louisiana; that is one place they were sent. Then, they
offered grand things to a few German planters in Pennsylvania to come and
settle the land on which the Acadians had worked so hard, building aboiteaus on
the river banks and farmsteads; it might have shown some foresight if they had
not burned the churches and houses and barns. There were broken promises in
regards to supplies to get them through the winter. Following them came the
broken in body and spirit Loyalists with nothing on their backs. Lands, horses,
tools - all confiscated. Yes,
I know that there were damaged people on all sides of these efforts. I
now try to look at events in perspective, in the era that they occurred. Not
just the who, what, where, and when, but also the why and the how. If I want
the first four w’s, I can google them. The why and how are trickier to find and
also subject to bias. I want to open the dykes and determine how that event
changed the course of my life. What if John and Rachel (Waterbury) Holmes, for
example, had not relocated from Fairfield County, CT, to Westchester County,
NY? Would I be reciting the pledge of allegiance to the American flag? Who
knows.
STORY
This is a continuation from last week –
story is a repeat.
“The
farm, left to Dad & Uncle Cecil by Grandfather [Charles] Holmes – from
Daniel. There was a lumber mill below the bridge (Daniel must have owned some
of that land at one time). There was also a mill down near the brook near the
MacKenzie & Holmes line. I remember what they called a sluice but I don’t
know what kind of a mill it was . . . Dad paid Uncle Cecil for his half of the
farm when he willed the property to Nan & I. Since it was the homestead the
Holmes relatives [visited] quite often.”[i] My
mother wrote this paragraph in her memoirs. “The farm,” as we first cousins
call it, is one of my favourite places, even though the buildings are gone now.
They stand tall, firm, and homey, in photos and my memories. It is about a
ten-minute drive from where Daniel Holmes built his homestead near Riverglade
on the Post Road. As I typed, I was delighted to read the above paragraph. When
she wrote this, I was only a beginning genealogist, and I didn’t ask as many
questions as I did later. When I finally did ask, she told me she didn’t
remember anything about Daniel. From the way she worded her paragraph, I would
say she had no proof, but must have remembered talk about it.
FACTS
This week: a work in progress. Different colours help me distinguish the
timeline. This will eventually include Lots 6, 7, and 8 of Hill Grove and the
purchase and sale of lots in Petitcodiac. Deeds refer to it as “on the Corn
Hill.” It needs polish. Endnotes, of course, will be removed to the end of the article. Lot 8 is
Grace (Holmes) March’s ancestral land and Blakney territory. I spent many
childhood hours in Charlie Blakney’s barn. Did Charlie ever squirt fresh cow
milk at you?
LOT 8
IN HILL GROVE
DETAILS of PURCHASES AND SALES AND WHERE
JAMES AND AUGUSTA WENT
James Kay, original
grantee, and his wife, sold 100 acres of Lot Number 8 on the Corn Hill,
bordering Lot 7 of Hugh McMonagle, to Daniel Holmes, on March 4, 1864, for 100
pounds. The original grant was for 200 acres (see map below); Daniel Holmes
bought the portion of the lot closer to the McMonagle property. Knowing this area, I can see that Lots 7 and
8 divide where the Buckley Settlement Road now veers off from Route 890.
ENDNOTE: "Canada, New Brunswick County
Deed Registry Books, 1780-1930." Images. FamilySearch.
http://FamilySearch.org : 18 July 2022. Citing Registrar of Deeds. County
Office of Service, New Brunswick, Canada. FamilySearch Film # 005556268, Number
23.850. Image 356. Accessed March 19, 2024.
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QSQ-G9S9-F9G5-3?cat=1469012
Daniel
Holmes and his wife, Charlotte, sold to their son, James H Holmes, the Lot that
Daniel purchased from James A Kay in 1864, for 300 New Brunswick dollars. The
deed was signed and sealed on March 15, 1865, and registered July 25, 1865. At
the time, James Hoyt Holmes was single; he would marry Augusta Corey in
December, 1870.
Endnote: Ibid.
FamilySearch Film # 005556270, Number 24.810. Image 188 Accessed March 19, 2024.
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QS7-L9S9-F9R2-8?cat=1469012
(For
my first cousins, but not for my article: Charlie Blakney; son of Daniel T
Blakeney; son of John Sherman Blakeney; son of Rev. David Blakeney.)
James
H Holmes and Augusta, his wife, signed and sealed the indenture, selling their
Lot of land on the Corn Hill to Rev. David Blakeney of Elgin on November 28,
1872. It was registered in Westmorland
County on December 10, 1872. The property of approximately 100 acres sold for
1000 New Brunswick dollars.
Endnote:
Ibid. Deed Book Vol H 3, 1872 – 1873, Number 31.228. Image
231. Accessed March 19, 2014.
James H Holmes
purchased land along the Main Post Road, Petitcodiac, bounded near the Pollett
River Platform and several other several properties, for the sum of 600 dollars
Canadian money, from Charles Chapman, his wife, Alice, and Elizabeth Chapman.
This deed was registered May 11, 1880.
Endnote: Ibid. Deed book Vol D 4, 1880, Number
40.645. Image 205. Accessed March 19, 2024.
James
H Holmes and Augusta, his wife, sold their 30-acre Lot along the Main Post Road
and the Intercolonial Railway that he purchased in 1880, to Thos. L. Dunfield.
They made this indenture on December 13, and the deed was registered on
December 21, 1881.
Endnote:
Ibid. Deed Book Vol H 4, 1881, Number 42.840. Image 581. Accessed March 19,
2024.
Where
did James go after he sold his land? He, his wife, and their four children went
to Maine, where James declared his intention to become a citizen of the United
States in Caribou in 1887. He was admitted as a citizen in 1890. He died in
South China, Maine, in 1927.
Ancestry.
“Maine, Federal Naturalization Records, 1787 – 1991. Superior Court, Aristook
County, Caribou, Maine. V 10, Petition No. 17, CA 1787 – 1906.
https://www.ancestry.ca/imageviewer/collections/2899/images/007342589_00079?pId=1008091
https://www.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=14033cda76c64f558e64a18ee3d388fb
This section refers to Lot 8, under the big A.
This ends
week twelve of our centennial virtual celebration.
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