Happy Canada Day! Where were they in 1867?

Happy Canada Day!

1 July 2017, Canada celebrates 150 years as a confederation.

So, I asked the question – where were my grandparents when Canada became a political entity? I can answer the question for many of my grandparents from that era. 

Thomas "Silas" Elyea

In the year that Canada became a country, my great-great-great grandparents (mother's side) 42-year-old Daniel Elyea and 34-year-old Sophia Elizabeth Cade were living in Collingwood with their children 15-year-old Thomas "Silas" (my great-great grandfather), 9-year-old Perry, and four-year-old Lottie Elyea. Daniel was working as a Teamster. Daniel was a descendant of Jan "John" Alyea who left Delaware, USA for Ameliasburgh, Ontario as a United Empire Loyalist arriving in Canada by at least by 1792. Daniel Elyea was already a 3rd-generation Canadian when the country was formed!

The Elyea's first arrived in North America around 1678 as French Huguenots escaping persecution in France. Our history is entwined with both the USA and Canada, as are many families whose origins are traced back to arrivals to New York in the mid- to late 1600's. Even after the time of Canadian Federation, many families moved back and forth across the American/Canadian border. 

Great-great-great grandfather, 53-year-old James Hall Sr and his wife 52-year-old Jane Breakey were living in St. Vincent Township near Meaford in 1867 with seven of their boys, Thomas, 23, Joseph 21, Isaiah 19, Samuel 17 (my great-great grandfather), 13 year old Robert, 11 year old Norton and 9 year old Henry. James was working as a farmer as were the boys Thomas, Joseph, Isaiah and Samuel. The couple arrived from Ireland to the USA first and subsequently landed in Canada around 1835 which was about a decade before the "great Potato Famine" but the start of the economic decline and increasing hardship in Ireland.

Annie Hall-VanMeer-Grant nee Waugh

They had 12 children in total (3 girls and 9 boys) including my great-great grandfather Samuel Hall (who was the father of my great-grandmother Mae Elyea nee Hall). Five years later Samuel Hall married 19-year-old Annie Waugh; they had eleven children, but after the birth of their eleventh child, Samuel died of heart failure when the baby was only 10 months old and sadly, baby Samuel Robert Hall died 6 months after his father.  Forty-six year-old Annie Hall (nee Waugh) was left widowed with 10 children under 15 years of age. She re-married five years later only to be widowed again two years later. Annie married a third time at 55 to William Grant. Oddly, Annie's daughter, my great-grandmother Mae Elyea was also widowed after the birth of an eleventh child with all of them under the age of 15 (however Mae never did remarry after she lost her husband at the age of 40).

Mae Elyea daughter of Annie Hall-VanMeer-Grant nee Waugh

Conrad Swalm Jr. and wife Elizabeth Cober Baker

In 1867, great-great-great grandfather Conrad Swalm Jr (23 years) and his wife of three years, Elizabeth Cober Baker (21 years) were welcoming their first child, Maria Cornelia Swalm in September of that year. Eleven more kids would follow in the next 20 years (including my great-grandfather Norman Swalm).

Conrad Jr. was working as a shoemaker in Collingwood, Ontario in 1867. Conrad Jr’s parents, Conrad Swalm Sr and wife Mary Ruhl were still living in Duntroon, Ontario where that couple first landed in Canada from Germany in 1834.

Conrad Jr was born in Canada and was the first generation of his family to be born here. His wife Elizabeth Cober Baker was a second-generation Canadian; her grandfather Samuel Baker arrived in Canada from Pennsylvania in 1808, part of a German migration from Pennsylvania to Ontario.

Fred Maier Sr with a group of men by the Niagara River

Great-great-great grandfather Frederick Maier, born in Wurttemburg, Germany arrived in the USA in 1866, he was 21 years old in 1867.  Five years later he was welcoming his first-born son Frederick Jr with his wife 20-year-old Augusta Siede who arrived in 1865 to New York, USA at the age of 15. She was born in Bruhlsdorf, Prussia. The couple raised their family in Buffalo, New York; father Frederick Maier Sr. was listed as a carpenter. Their daughter Martha Matilda Maier later married Norman Swalm.

Augusta Maier nee Siede with Fred Maier Jr.

On my father’s side, my great-grandfather Arthur Holroyd had not yet landed in Canada – he arrived from England an orphan at the age of 12 in 1874. His wife Lottie Myers was born in Osprey Township in 1866. Her parents, Joseph Myers, 38 and Jane Bullock, 38 arrived in Canada from England around 1865. Joseph Myers was a farmer in Osprey Township, Grey County, Ontario.

Arthur Holroyd and wife Lottie Myers

My great-great-great grandfather William Phillips was born in 1821 in Upper Canada, I don’t know when the Phillips arrived in Canada but it was before 1821, they did have connections with the USA as his wife Rebecca McCuthing was from Upper New York State but was born in Upper Canada in 1831. In 1867, 46-year-old William Phillips and 36-year-old Rebecca were living in Dundas, Ontario with their family, James Norman Phillips, 17, William Phillips Jr 14, 12-year-old Alice and 7-year-old John. William Phillips Sr was working as a labourer. Great-great grandfather James Norman Phillips married the following year in 1868 to Mary Elizabeth Adair, he was 18, she was 17; they had three children.

Mary Elizabeth Adair was born in Canada; her parents emigrated from Ireland between 1846 and 1849 at the height of the great potato famine. In 1867 her parents 42 year-old John Adair and 42 year-old Anna Elizabeth Newell were celebrating the birth of their last child, a son named Lorenzo Adair. The family were farmers in Osprey Township, in Grey County, Ontario.

Mary Elizabeth Phillips nee Adair