Uncle Peg’s Chronicles
November 6, 2025
“Repetitive Legal Mumbo-Jumbo”
(Don’t
be put off by the title – it is what I am reading, not writing.)
“These
were their settlements. And they kept good family records.”[i]
Don’t
forget to look for the title which is embedded in the chronicle.
FAMILY ALBUM
PANB: See the record at the link. https://archives2.gnb.ca/Search/VISSE/141B7.aspx?culture=en-CA&guid=3274A3FE-6B98-4437-9900-A7F0E0DA8830
+
AND I
QUOTE:
Thank you, Peggy. You work
so hard. Thank you for the sharing all your research and making it so
accessible. – Jolynda.
1924
to 1928
Those are the
years that our Holmes ancestors 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
Perhaps I’ve written about this before;
I can’t remember. Sometimes, things are just hard to do. Having learned that I
can glean so much from probates and land records doesn’t make me excited to
research them. It is repetitive legal mumbo-jumbo that must be read word by
word from beginning to end, and put in a descriptive time line. Often, these
are not recorded or digitized in numerical order. I absolutely must cite as I
go. I feel like I have nothing to tell you in a chronicle, as I would bore my
faithful readers to tears. Sorry about the cliché, but it’s true. Mind you, my
faithful readers probably understand the need to do this before I can write an
interesting, anecdotal family history of our ancestors and collateral lines.
So, what will I tell you about in this
memorial paragraph this time? Vicissitudes. What, I asked Google, are
vicissitudes? From the Oxford dictionary: a change of circumstances or fortune, typically one that is unwelcome or unpleasant.
That is what happened to Uncle Fenwick and Aunt Maud in 1896 – they had a
series of vicissitudes that started before and ended well after that year. They
became insolvent. As Maud had made or signed some of the financial commitments,
her right of dowry was affected. Now, Maud, as far as I know, did not earn a
living, but she was the primary person listed on quite a few financial
documents. Using her name in search boxes, I find more information than if I
use his. She may have had a significant dowry or means of support from her
family back in New Brunswick, but I don’t know about that. At this time, I
figure Fenwick provided the capital, but Maud’s name was definitely included on
the deeds and mortgages, and even an interest in their mine. Fenwick lost his
hardware business, although so far I have that on the word of a historian, with
no source given. I have not found the sale in the land records, yet. I am still
digging.
“. . . you must know much more than you write,” is my
favourite quote of James Alexander Thom.[1]
That is what I am doing for you. I could list every document, even include a
copy of each, but I doubt that would interest many of you. If it does, let me
know and I’ll tell you some of the places I found things. I have lots of
footnotes – I must.
FAMILY HISTORY LESSON
Bessie was the youngest daughter and
second-youngest child of Daniel and Charlotte. I plan to use the revised book
as the basis for the chapter called Westmorland in Colossal
Collection of Cousins. I am culling and adding new records. Fenwick will
have an entirely new story, although some chapters, like Bessie’s, will be
recognizable.
What I am doing for Fenwick and Maud is
part of the process. My goal is to revise it with the details I have found
since I distributed the book in 2014 - ages ago, it seems. I want it to be more
accurate but remain personal – these are our ancestors and their siblings,
after all. It is an update, but, of course, their story will never be finished,
as there will always be new records to enhance the story, or verify or deny the
details. I also plan to be more objective. Gone will be my personal opinions
and biases. What I am doing right now is tedious and boring – I am not enjoying
it one bit, although I am learning. I didn’t want to bore you, so I gave Aunt
Bessie a quick review. I am not through with her, but I gave her story a start
of a revision. What is in red or struck through is what I have noticed so far
that needs to be verified or changed.
She sleeps in Jesus and is blest,
How sweet her slumbers are,
From trouble and from sin released,
And freed from every care.[2]
There
are few records about Miss Bessie, but I do not want her to be forgotten. She was the eleventh child of twelve, and her mother died when she was
eighteen. She was probably the only child still living at home at the time of
her marriage. Verify. Daniel and
Charlotte were in their early forties when Charlotte Elizabeth was born at home
on July 6, 1854, and christened in Portage Vale on September 10, 1854.[3]
They named her for her mother, but she was generally known as Bessie, even on
her tombstone. Bessie married her second cousin, Verify Verified. Elias Kinnear, on June 13, 1878. Their
neighbor of many years, Rev. Cuthbert Willis, performed the ceremony with the
assistance of a missionary, Rev. John Lockwood.[4]
Bessie, unlike her sisters, did not marry at home. She and Elias married
in Portage Vale, at the home of their mutual
great-uncle, Samuel Ketchum.[5]
Samuel Ketchum was great-uncle to both of them in
their respective maternal family lines. Info
repeated, revise those two sentences. The Kinnear family lived close to
the Ketchums. Elias
was twelve years older than Bessie, and in the one photograph I have of him, he
has a tickly moustache. I believe they made their home in Corn Ridge, or
perhaps along the Corn Ridge Road. The newspaper article announcing their
marriage stated that Elias lived in Corn Ridge.[6]
Cornhill was first called “the Ridge” and the name was changed to Corn Ridge in
the mid 1800’s. It changed again to Cornhill when the post office opened in
1861.[7] The
Corn Ridge Road still exists, joining the communities of Cornhill and Glenvale
to Havelock. Don’t you think Bessie was excited, moving into her own little
house and fixing it up to her liking? Note that
Elias purchased a lot from Daniel in Hill Grove – date that deed; was it after
his marriage to Bessie? I know the area where they lived quite well, although I do not know
exactly where their house stood. I know that she could go outdoors and pick
wildflowers and wild strawberries in July, because close to where she lived, in
Hillgrove, I did that. I wonder what chores Bessie did in her new house. In the History of Cornhill[8],
the resident compilers listed some chores, duties and trivia about daily life
in the era when Bessie lived. If her health permitted, she would have churned
butter a couple of times a week, putting her own wooden stamp on her blocks of
butter. She would have collected eggs from the hens in the morning. She might have carded the wool from the sheep
and spun it into yarn to knit warm underwear and socks for the winter, and made
her own candles from beef tallow. She probably planted a kitchen garden and
tended to the weeding. She must have anticipated filling her sealers with her
own vegetables and filling up the root cellar in preparation for winter. I am
sure she would have picked the tiny wild strawberries for shortcake if she
could have. Her days could have been full in the early summer of 1878. I
suppose she hitched the horse to the carriage and rode down the road to visit
her sister, Hattie, in Hillgrove, who was with child and gave birth to Oliver
in late July. Bessie
didn’t have much time to knit warm underwear and socks for Elias or can
her vegetables that summer. Six weeks after her marriage, Bessie died. She
rests beside her parents in the Petitcodiac Baptist Church Cemetery, under a
broken tombstone that does not even acknowledge her married name. Before the
top portion fell off, it read:
HOLMES, Bessie
Died July 29, 1878 aged 24 years
Daughter of Daniel Holmes[9]
I have been unable to find a cause of
death for Bessie.
This ends
week forty-five of our centennial virtual celebration of 1925 – 2025.
[1] Thom, James Alexander. “The Art and Craft
of Writing Historical Fiction.” 2010. Page 51.
[2] Tombstone epitaph of Bessie Holmes.
[3] New Brunswick Genealogical Society. Anglican Registers Project,
Register MC223-S15-6G1, Page 0180 (URL:
https://arp.nbgstwo.ca/records/displayRecord/MC223-S15-6G1-0180_baptism_0360, Retrieved on October 30, 2025.
[4] New Brunswick Genealogical Society, Anglican Registers Project,
Register MC223-S9-6F1, Page 0022 (URL:
https://arp.nbgstwo.ca/records/displayRecord/MC223-S9-6F1-0022_marriage_0020, Retrieved on October 30, 2025.
[5] PANB. Daniel F Johnson’s New Brunswick Newspapers Vital Statistics.
The Daily Telegraph, Saint John, New Brunswick. June 15, 1878. Accessed August
25, 2013. Update. http://archives.gnb.ca/Search/NewspaperVitalStats/Details.aspx?culture=en-CA&guid=9f104712-2e18-4bf1-b096-e77950e9c173&r=1&ni=158979
[6] Ibid. Accessed September 8,
2013.
[7] Residents of Cornhill, Compilers. History of Cornhill. Intercollegiate Press, Printers. Page 4, 10.
[8] Ibid. Pages 220, 221.
[9] Southeastern
Branch, NBGS. Cemeteries of Westmorland
County. Salisbury Parish. 2006. Page 98.
Note: from a previous transcription.
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