Uncle Peg’s Chronicles
March 14, 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.
“Loaf of Brown Bread”
FAMILY ALBUM
This photo made me smile this week. T’was a birthday
celebration for Keith Burden’s lovely wife, Alisha. Keith is not in the photo,
but his son, Benjamin, and his daughter, Eliza, are there. I’ve followed them
on Peggy’s and Keith’s Facebooks since they were littles. How quickly they grow!
Keith is one of the four sons of the other Peggy, Margaret aka Peggy Steeves.
Both photos snatched.
This one
made me smile as well. I enjoy watching Caden’s plumbing journey. The video
that accompanied the photo showed more details of him at work. Caden is the
grandson of Glenn and Mitzi Holmes, and he has been a plumbing apprentice for
oh, I’d say about three years now. You can learn a lot on Youtube. His first
instructions to Glenn were “Grandpa, we have to shut the water off first.” I’ve
used a father-son plumbing team in the past, and they are both at least six
feet tall. Great at their jobs, but do have a time fitting into tight squeezes.
1924 – 2024 CENTENNIAL WEEK TEN
GRATITUDE
Grateful to Byron, Grace, Marvin, and Ralph for their
responses this week. I enjoyed your insights and I
appreciate that you read Uncle Peg’s chronicles faithfully.
MY GENEALOGY GOALS
- Chronicle
several times, and publish on Thursday morning.
- 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 William and Anna Holmes
family genealogy. No rush on that.
- Index
old newspapers for NBGS. On hold.
- Index
Riverbank Visitors for NBGS. Put old newspapers on hold while I do this.
I worked diligently on the index for Riverbank
Visitors. Not sure when our NBGS website will be updated, but when Daphne
(webmaster) asks for this, I should be ready. For those who forget, this is
Uncle Billy’s fishing lodge guest book from 1909 to 1915. There are a few names
that I cannot read. Signatures, you know. In the evenings, I worked on updating
the Alf and Carrie Steeves portion of the family tree. As I worked on it last
year for Elizabeth, it doesn’t need much updating. Last but not least, I worked
on the article about the Daniel Holmes will for “Generations.”
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 know from some of my Civil War study
that death certificates are not always correct. Even worse can be some written
accounts made soon after death. It's a time when people can put a positive, or
negative, spin on a biography. Depends who is doing the recording and what they
thought of the deceased.
That doesn't solve the name confusion,
but it does point out that contemporary sources are not always correct.
In the case of Charlotte, I think the
gravestone gives the best evidence and be least apt to be colored by opinion.
Add that to all the other evidence and Charlotte seems to be pretty
definitively documented.” ~ Byron
Holmes, email of March 7, 2024.
Byron,
I found Charlotte’s burial record in the Anglican Church Archives this week.
They didn’t wait too many days to bury them back then. A clincher. Our
family researchers all have their own focus. Annmarie goes at it like I do –
the broad picture. Her husband, Byron, studies the Civil War era. Those of us
who descend from Daniel and Charlotte Holmes didn’t have Holmes ancestors who
fought in the Civil War, as Samuel Holmes Sr. came to Nova Scotia after the
Revolution. That is not to say individuals of other lines didn’t fight in the
Civil War, just that our Holmes line didn’t. But, Samuel Holmes Sr’s son,
Samuel Holmes Jr, with his second wife, Elizabeth McElmon, moved to New York
about 1820. There, he had six or seven children, including three or four sons.
I’m sure Byron knows about these men, and what happened to them, or he could if
he wants to, as Annmarie knows about them. We
know that James B, Benjamin McElmon, and Lyman White Holmes fought in the Civil
War, as did Franklin Freeman, the second husband of Betsy Marinda (Holmes)
Witherel. We even have a photo of James B in uniform. We know what happened to
them, thanks to the efforts of Jean Williams and Joanne VanderLaan. The search
wasn’t easy. I know that James B was wounded, and sometime after his return
left his wife and children behind to marry another woman. I know that Benjamin
McElmon survived the war and was a stone mason. I know what the conditions were
like in the hospital where Lyman White died. Betsy Marinda died in the first
half of the 1860s (after the 1860 census but before her second husband
remarried, probably). Marinda and Franklin Freeman had two sons born in the
1850s, and Franklin remarried in 1865 to Alice Hewett. They probably had ten
children. I don’t know anything about his war experience.
For Private
James B Holmes, 142nd Regiment, Company E
https://www.ancestry.ca/imageviewer/collections/1964/images/31513_216242-00244?pId=38640
I
wonder about shell shock/PTSD. An anachronism, as these word combinations are a
product of the 20th century, but still, it existed. (More study
needed to talk intelligently about that, so I won’t.) How did it affect James,
Benjamin, and Franklin? Could that be the reason that James walked away from
his wife, leaving her dependant on the state, neighbours, and eventually, grown
children? Wars
continue. I figure all of our ancestors who fought in WWII are gone now. Do we
have living veterans of more recent wars and peacekeeping efforts within our
Holmes circle? I think so. We have grown children and grandchildren who are in
the military and reserves. Wounds, as I understand it, are not always visible.
That’s all I understand; I cannot begin to fathom the reality of the effects of
war. Some of you may know.
52 ANCESTORS IN 52 WEEKS
This week’s theme for 52 Ancestors is
Accomplishments.
Making Bread
I suppose most people
will write about a famous person in their tree, or a great big accomplishment.
I considered writing about Miss Grace Ballantyne, daughter of Robert and Louisa
(Holmes) Ballantyne, who became one of the first ten female lawyers in the
United States, and as a female lawyer, won a civil court case for the cause of
women in her home town in Iowa. Paula and I researched Grace’s life together
and it was an amazing collaboration, uncovering the details of her life. I
think becoming a General is pretty amazing, don’t you? I think of Edward
Underhill and Fenwicke W Holmes, Generals. I think it would be fun to invent
something. Mac Minella, in the plumbing field, and Norman Ballantyne, in radio
tubes, come to mind. With the exception of Fen, most of you won’t recognize all
of those names, but that’s okay. Those individuals and probably many more, in
our family, accomplished things. Most of us accomplish things, maybe not big
enough to make the news, but in our own small way. I have never, in my life, made a loaf of bread. To me,
that is an accomplishment. I have watched my mother pound a bowl of dough to
deflate it, and watched it rise again. She took that big ol’ knife and cut it
into two, patted it lovingly into two pans, and made a wonderful aroma in our
kitchen. Sometimes she rolled it out, smathered it with brown sugar and
cinnamon, and made the best cinnamon rolls ever. Mum learned most of her
cooking skills from her mother, and knew how to operate the old wood stove’s
temperature by feeding just the right amount of wood into it. That is another
accomplishment in itself. I
realized recently that Gram, Minnie (Colpitts) Holmes, didn’t teach Mum how to
make bread. Her landlady, Mrs. Humphreys, did: crotchety, demanding, bedridden
Mrs. Humphreys. It’s short, so I included her molasses cake story as well. In
her own words: I
worked that summer where I had boarded. The lady was in bed so I had meals,
cleaning, baking etc. Had never made bread before but I tried it. I’d mix some
flour and then take it upstairs to see what to do next. It was a long procedure
but we ate it! We had always had molasses cake when we were boarding so one day
I decided to make a white cake. I got scolded as nobody ate anything but
molasses cake. It surely went fast so I’d make a molasses cake for the lady
& different ones for us.
Mum’s
Brown Bread
1 cup oatmeal
1/3 cup cornmeal
1 cup all-bran (optional)
2/3 cup molasses
A heaping teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons oil or
shortening
1 envelope yeast
Flour (try six cups)
Question I can no longer
ask her: Why is a cup of all-bran optional? A wet cup of all-bran surely would
make a difference, wouldn’t it? I notice she didn’t include it in her
instructions.
Observation: I heard that
Canadian molasses is better than American molasses. I don’t recall eating or
cooking with American molasses.
Question: How do you know
when you have enough flour?
Scald oatmeal &
cornmeal with 4 cups boiling water. Add molasses. Let cool a bit.
Add yeast to warm water and
1 teaspoon of sugar.
Add flour, kneading first
in bowl and then on table. Leave for ten minutes and test for enough flour.
Let raise to more than
double size (can raise overnight in fridge).
Question: Then what?
50 minutes at 350 degrees.
Question: How do you like
your brown bread? I like mine with molasses on the side, or butter and jam.
Observation: You can buy a
wonderful loaf of brown bread at the Cornhill Farmhouse.
A PORTION OF MY ARTICLE ABOUT DANIEL
HOLMES
STORY
“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] “The farm,”
as all of my cousins call it, is one of my favourite places, even though all
the buildings are gone. It is about a ten-minute drive from where Daniel
Holmes’ built his homestead near Riverglade on the Old Post Road. As I type
Mum’s memoirs, I am 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’d say she had no proof, but
must have remembered talk about it.
Daniel did indeed own the property, and also
some land by the Salt Springs Brook where his saw mill was. There is a dot on
the Walling map which has “D. Holmes Saw Mill” [ii]
written beside it. He bought and sold several pieces of property, including
lots in Hill Grove, where several of his sons lived for a time. A small corner
of one of the lots remains in the family to this day. Place
an arrow to the small corner of McMonagle’s lot.
Facts
– Partially researched but not written yet.
Crown
Grant Reference Map of Hill Grove.[iii]
Daniel Holmes owned, at one time, lots 6, 7, and maybe
8.
https://www.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=14033cda76c64f558e64a18ee3d388fb
Not part of my article, but this map puts our property into perspective
for my siblings and cousins. On the left, and on the county line, is Fowler.
That is now the Von Waldow Farm. Next to that is Dunfield and Cain. That would
be the property between Waldow Farms and our lot. McMonagle land was purchased
by Daniel Holmes. If you look closely, there are little red lines in each early
grant. On the bottom of the McMonagle lot, about where it says 100 A(cres), is
what we know as the farm. I can click on that lot and see the amount of tax my
brother (the current owner) needs to pay this year. That is public information.
After McMonagle comes the Kay lot, and I am not sure yet of its provenance.
Eventually, Dan Blakney purchased it and we know it as Charlie Blakeney’s. It
is now owned by the Wynes family. The
road to Uncle Cecil’s (Buckley Settlement Road) appears to start between the
McMonagle and the Kay lot. After that is the J A Bleakney lot. The church that
is there now probably was on the Kay lot, and I think Daniel purchased a bit of
land for a mill by the brook. I would think that the Israel Steeves lot is
where the second church (which Charles brought up to our property and we knew
it as the woodshed) sat. From left to right, you can see the Salt Springs Brook
meandering up to the top of the map on the Killen property. Hope this makes
sense to you and gives perspective to the property that we know. I’m still
working on all of this, in order to place some of Daniel’s children in Hill
Grove.
OUR HOLMES FAMILY HISTORY LESSON
This is part two of two of the Charles and Phoebe Holmes death records.
If you haven’t read part one, you may wish to go back and read it. The record
is at the Provincial Archives of New Brunswick, and the link is under the death
certificate. From numbers 1 – 11 and 18 – 23, I am satisfied with the record. I
will discuss numbers 11 to 17.
Charles and Phoebe Holmes lived in a small, uninsulated house across the
driveway from the house that Charles built in the 1890s, in which they raised
nine children. Those of you who know the house, know that it was a tight
squeeze. By the time the baby, Floyd, came along, George, their oldest child,
was almost ready to move to his new digs as a border in Anagance. There were
two stoves in the small house, one, the cookstove in the kitchen, and one stove
in the living room. The ceiling boards
were charred. There were four rooms and an outside privy, plus a storage closet
off the kitchen. Although I remember some things from playing in the house as a
child, my memories are fuzzy. The beds were feather ticks. Mum said she was
never in the house until after her grandmother died. She was eleven at that
time, and helped to clean Charles’ house.
Phoebe’s death was likely a painful one, given that she had
arteriosclerosis for three years, and gangrene took her life. Arteriosclerosis
was referred to as hardening of the arteries in my family. We know that she
also had asthma. I remember Janet Nolte telling me that, near the end of her
life, they brought her a non-feather pillow, and the asthma cleared up. I note
that Dr. Fleming saw her on her date of death. His name is familiar to me,
although I never met him.
Phoebe lived to be almost 78. From July 30, 1856, to June 27, 1933, she
lived in Hill Grove, New Brunswick, according to the informant. I have an idea
where she lived until her marriage, by the Walling Map of 1862. On the left is
Hill Grove in 1862. You can see, near the border of Kings and Westmorland, the
names of D Coats, E McMonagle, D Holmes Saw Mill, George Graves, etc. These are
familiar names to me. If you look closely, there is a dot by E McMonagle’s
name, right across from D Holmes S Mill (Daniel Holmes saw mill). At the dot beside the name of McMonagle is
the place of Phoebe’s birth. For my sibs and cousins, it is right on the other
side of the brook (Salt Springs Brook) – between the brook and the church.
https://collections.leventhalmap.org/search/commonwealth:4m90fg569
That is some background information. So, what’s the problem?
E McMonagle is Edwin, and he was Phoebe’s father. Her mother was
Elizabeth MNU. Although I have some ideas, I do not know Elizabeth’s last name.
Perhaps Blakeney or a variation of spelling. Edwin was some relation to Hugh
McMonagle, who owned that property and sold it to Daniel Holmes. I do not see
that Edwin ever owned that property.
How do I know Phoebe’s mother was Elizabeth and not Phoebe Pierce or
Prince? Well, in that era, there is no record of a Phoebe Pierce or Prince, as
told by the informant, Cecil C Holmes, her son. Here’s what I do know. Phoebe
Pierce (1775 – 1866, was the wife of Hugh McMonagle Sr, Esquire, and the mother
of Hugh McMonagle Jr.
1851 Census of New Brunswick (going by the names on the list, probably
Hill Grove). Edward (probably sic) was a lodger in the home of Hiram Humphrey,
age 33, of Irish origin, and a labourer. Unfortunately, this was the first
census taken of Canada, or British North America at the time.
1861 Census (probably Hill Grove). As you can see by the snippet, the
McMonagle family’s stats are very hard to read, but Elizabeth is clear enough.
I believe Edwin and his wife, Elizabeth, were both 42; their daughters, Phoebe
and Arletta, were, I think, 9 and 7. Arletta has been transcribed as Violetta,
and I can’t officially dispute that as it’s almost illegible. She shows up
later as Arletta, and Phoebe named a daughter Arletta. She disappeared after
the 1871 census, when she was living in the household of Hugh McMonagle and his
wife, Alice, age 11. That is the last record in which I find Edwin/Edward
McMonagle. I assume he died between 1861 and 1865.
In February, 1865, Elizabeth (MNU) McMonagle married George Fowler, who
lived up the hill. His house was in Kings County; his barn, in Westmorland
County. That continues to this day with the present owners, Jeorg and Jane Von
Waldow. The witnesses were Thomas and Henrietta Herrett.
https://www.ancestry.ca/imageviewer/collections/61511/images/FS_005418866_00174?pId=90154752
1871 Census (still in the same general area), our Phoebe McMonagle, age
14 lived in the household of James and Abigail Blakeney. See their name on the
grant map, above.
I am confident that Phoebe McMonagle was the daughter of Edwin and
Elizabeth (MNU) McMonagle Fowler; that her father died before 1865; that her
mother married the farmer, George Fowler in 1865; and that George Fowler
married Maria Chapman after Elizabeth’s death, but I don’t know when. Is that
why Phoebe and Arletta boarded with other people? What were the relationships
of sisters Phoebe and Arletta McMonagle to Hugh and Alice (Cain) McMonagle and
James and Abigail (Herrett) Blakeney? Were they related, or simply boarded with
and/or served them.
Hugh McMonagle Jr (1804 – 1871), was the son of Hugh McMonagle (1761 –
1803) and Phoebe Pierce (1775 – 1866).
He married Alice Cain. The land grant next to Hugh McMonagle’s belonged
to a Cain. The Cain grant was next to the Dunfield’s and then Fowler’s. I have
not looked into that too much.
I cannot locate much on James Blakeney and Abigail Herrett, but at this
link, I see that they married in 1850. James was a minister. I may have more
info on them in one of my binders.
https://www.angelfire.com/co2/Jenn/Familytrees/JennFamilyTree.htm
What is my conclusion? I have a brick wall beginning at Edwin McMonagle
and Elizabeth MNU. I have a hunch that there was an illegitimate birth in
there, prompting a cover up. Perhaps, it’s just a matter of a lack of record
keeping. I’ll keep chinking away from time to time.
My other conclusion is that this death record is probably incorrect at
number 14. Uncle Cecil may have heard the name Phoebe Pierce bandied about, as
she was the mother of Hugh McMonagle, and the McMonagles played a key (albeit
mysterious) role in the Charles R Holmes and Phoebe J McMonagle family.
My DNA, and the DNA of my mother and Janet Nolte, shows a relationship
to several Coreys. They didn’t live too far away from the Holmeses, Blakeneys,
and McMonagles, and I have not determined the connection yet. Sandra Thorne and
I have pretty much exhausted the study of the Blakeney and Herrett possible
connections, but we have not discounted them. If anyone descended from
Charles and Phoebe Holmes would like to check their DNA results, I’m interested
to know if you have Corey, Blakeney, Cain, Herrett, or McMonagle connections –
probably in the 5th to 8th cousin range.
https://archives.gnb.ca/Search/VISSE/141C5.aspx?culture=en-CA&guid=103b68f2-2a29-4d74-b938-435d41ad735c
This ends
week eleven of our centennial virtual celebration.
Happy pi day.
[i] Moore, M. Margaret. “Memories of Mary Margaret Holmes Moore.”
Started in 2003.
[ii] FamilySearch. Walling, H. F. “Topographical Map of Westmorland and
Albert County. New York: W. E. and A. A. Baker. 1862. Page 4. https://www.familysearch.org/library/books/viewer/844591/?offset=#page=4&viewer=picture&o=info&n=0&q=
[iii] Crown Grant Reference Map. GeoNB. Land still belonging to our
family is GRP 130. PID 70460324. https://www.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=14033cda76c64f558e64a18ee3d388fb
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