Fire On The Villains

 Anthony Dixon was the first child born to ancestors James Dixon and Isabella Swinbank in Canada following their 1818 immigration and initial settlement in Aldborough Township in Elgin County.  As an early Canadian career civil servant, Antony would, during that career, one day stand wrongfully accused of murder. 

Anthony, an early family record keeper, records his birth in the following terms: 

"Anthony Dixon, born on the 6^th of September, 1819 at 6 a.m. on the banks of Lake Erie in the Township of Aldborough, Talbot Settlement, Upper Canada, now in the County of Elgin, Province of Ontario, Dominion of Canada" 

Some literary licence was used by Anthony in describing his birth since the family farm at the time was in fact actually one concession road over from Lake Erie.  At the age of 5, Anthony moved with his family to Etobicoke Township near to-day’s Toronto Airport.  Nearby Dixon Road, now a major thoroughfare, is named after his many Dixon relatives who took up land in the area. 

In 1843 twenty-three-year-old Anthony married twenty-year-old Mary McLaughlin, an Irish born Catholic, at Toronto’s St. James Anglican Cathedral.  Two years later his career as a civil servant was launched with the Customs Service of Canada. 

Positions with the Customs Service at the time were highly sought after and popular patronage appointments.  In those days before income tax, three-quarters of all federal revenue came from customs and excise duties.  Salaries for Customs officials, often based on revenue collected, could also be supplemented by a right to share in the proceeds of any seized goods.  The year Anthony was appointed there were but one hundred and thirty-two customs officers in all of Canada.  Those officers scattered across sixty-three customs ports, mostly along the St. Lawrence River or the Great Lakes, were, apart from imposing duties on goods arriving from the United States, also tasked with dealing with the smuggling that was rampant along the border.    

Extensive documentation at Archives Canada traces Anthony’s various postings and his rise through his civil service career.  In September of 1845 Anthony reported for his first posting at Oakville as a surveyor and landing waiter, an antiquated term for one who assisted the collector of customs at any port.  Three months later he was posted for the winter to Fort Erie to help address the spate of smuggling from the United States that existing manpower had been unable to curb.  He later returned to his home base of Oakville before another winter posting that took him to Queenston. 

By the fall of 1847 and back in Oakville, Anthony requested a transfer to another port and an increase in salary.   Enclosed were letters of reference which spoke of his vigilance, zeal, and efficiency in carrying out his duties.  Anthony’s efforts were only partly successful.  Although he was posted to Brockville, there was to be no increase in salary, Anthony persistently continued to raise the matter over the next few years.  In one letter he pointed out that a dwelling house at his old port of Oakville could be had for six pounds per year while in Brockville he had to pay twenty-one pounds.  His superior supported Anthony in his efforts by describing him as a "zealous and meritorious officer".  In 1851 Anthony finally received the raise he had been seeking, an increase to seventy-five pounds per annum, a fifty percent increase over his previous salary. 

The financial success of 1851 was then followed by what were no doubt the most difficult months of Anthony’s life.  First he was accused, unfairly it appears, by the publisher and editor of the Brockville Recorder of financial irregularities in the course of his duties. These were the days when newspapers were usually known for supporting one political party to the exclusion of all others.  It seems that the publisher’s motives were political since in disparaging Anthony he complained about the "Tory leanings of the whole batch of customs officials here" before going on to assert that "the only Reformer belonging to the office is the hardest working man among the whole". 

Given this antagonism, an incident which followed on December 3, 1852 did nothing to cool the publisher’s rhetoric.  The seriousness of the incident is best captured in the wording of an urgent telegram to the Commissioner of Customs from Anthony’s superior: 

"A conflict occurred last night between a party of smugglers and Officer Dixon in which one of the smuggling party was killed.  The seizure was effected after great resistance, the guilty party same as in last seizure.  To whom shall I apply on the part of Government in the absence of Attorney General?" 

As a result of this incident Anthony would earn his place in Canadian Customs history as having been a party to the only smuggling case where a smuggler was shot and killed.  In his book, “The Collectors”, author David McIntosh writes: 

"Armed gangs of smugglers were not uncommon on the … St. Lawrence and Niagara frontiers of Upper Canada.  Assaults on customs officers and deliberate maiming of their horses were almost routine.  Smugglers and officers were constantly “presenting” their pistols at one another.  Luckily, both sides seemed to be very bad shots.  There is only one case (1852) in Canada we have found in which anyone was shot and killed:  a smuggler who was part of a gang intercepted by Customs on a cold winter’s night on the road between Brockville and Smith’s Falls."

The deceased was one Henry Smith.  After his death, his body was moved to a nearby hotel for the then obligatory immediate inquest.  Anthony testified that he had received a tip that Robert Chamberlain, a notorious local smuggler, had planned to offload a quantity of smuggled goods at a location near Brockville.  Acting on that information, Anthony, after concealing himself with three civilian assistants, heard the sound of an approaching empty wagon that then returned fully loaded shortly after. 

With that, Anthony stepped out and demanded of the three men accompanying the wagon that they "stop in the Queen’s name".  Chamberlain was then heard to state that he would die before giving up his goods and shoot those who stood in his way.  After then shouting "damn you, I’ll blow your brains out", he immediately fired at Anthony with ensuing mayhem and five or six shots fired on both sides.  When the shooting ended, Chamberlain’s accomplice Smith lay dead. 

It is clear from Anthony’s narrative that neither side had been shy about arming itself in advance.  Anthony had brought two pistols, one assistant three, another one pistol, and a third a fowling piece [shotgun].  The smugglers’ arsenal had included four clubs, Chamberlain’s pistol, and a cocked pistol found in Smith’s hand after his death. 

The smuggled goods over which Smith had died consisted of eleven chests of tea, four boxes of tobacco, some coffee, and an assortment of seasonings.  Although the goods were all seized, Chamberlain managed to escape.  It was Anthony’s evidence that the wagon used was the same as that involved in another smuggling incident two weeks earlier. 

It was reasonably clear, based on the totality of the evidence of Anthony’s civilian assistants, that it had likely been one of them who had fired the fatal shot amidst all the confusion.  Anthony said that he himself had fired no shots.  One of the assistants, providing confirmatory evidence of Chamberlain’s aggressive conduct, testified that he had fired at Anthony from a distance of two feet or less.  It was at that stage that Anthony had cried out "fire on the villains" and the resulting mayhem ensued. 

It seems nothing short of miraculous that Anthony was able to survive being shot at such close range once or, according to some reports, possibly twice.  The likely explanation for his survival is found in a subsequent report from Anthony’s superior: 

"Chamberlain, presenting a revolver at Mr. Dixon’s breast, fired twice.  The night being cold Mr Dixon was thickly clothed, which fortunately prevented the bullets from penetrating to his flesh … they had passed through thirteen folds of cloth." 

According to the report on the inquest, some of the jurors were interested in knowing why Anthony had selected civilians to assist him rather than fellow officers.  This was a question that Anthony had apparently refused to answer.  One can only speculate that Anthony may have had a clear eye on his own monetary interests in selecting strangers over fellow officers who would have been entitled to a share of the proceeds of the confiscated goods.  In this respect, the criticism levelled against him may have had some validity. 

Although the verdict of the coroner’s jury was that Smith had died from gunshot wounds, it reached no conclusion regarding the responsible party.    The verdict also censured Anthony by saying that it would have been preferable "had the said Anthony Dixon called on his brother officers to assist in seizing the aforesaid goods, instead of calling upon men unconnected with the customs department".  The publisher of the Brockville Recorder, with little regard for the facts, followed up this criticism by saying "we must do what we can to preserve our fellow citizens from being needlessly shot down like dogs". 

The publisher’s enmity was soon to be the least of Anthony’s problems.  The first telegram alerting the Commissioner of Customs of the incident was soon followed by another.  Apart from detailing the findings of the inquest, it alerted the Commissioner to a rapidly deteriorating situation.  Anthony's safety was in jeopardy and he was about to be arrested for murder: 

"Goff, Magistrate at Kitley [a community near Brockville where the deceased resided] has issued warrants against Dixon and party for murder.  The Bailiff insists that he will take them to Goff --- though his warrant says before him or any magistrate.  If this course is suffered I fear great murder will ensue for Kitley has been roused to great excitement …  Will the Attorney General give orders what to do?"

It appears that the arrest warrants for Anthony and his assistants were based on a private complaint by a brother of the deceased.  Law enforcement was not particularly sophisticated in the 1850s and prosecutions (albeit not usually murder) were frequently commenced by civilian informants.  Because federal archival sources that might shed light on subsequent events are missing for several months following the first urgent telegrams, it is necessary to refer to surviving copies of the Brockville Recorder to source the events that followed. 

What followed was a cat and mouse game to determine the jurisdiction in which the proceedings would be heard.  Two of Anthony’s assistants were the first to be arrested in Brockville but with the intention of taking them to Kitley. To frustrate that plan, a Brockville magistrate, after asking the Kitley constable to let him inspect the warrants, then refused to return the warrants and arranged for Brockville constables to bring the prisoners before him. 

The not surprisingly outraged magistrate in Kitley in turn promptly issued arrest warrants against the Brockville constables involved in the "rescue".  Remarkably, he also issued a warrant for the arrest of his fellow magistrate who had orchestrated events for an alleged obstruction of justice.  After some further procedural wrangling and government direction, the preliminary examination proceeded in Brockville before a panel of magistrates there.  It was their job to determine if the charge of murder had sufficient merit to proceed to trial.  By this time Anthony, assured of the venue, had turned himself in as did two of his assistants. 

The preliminary examination involved a procession of witnesses who gave evidence about their knowledge of the smugglers’ activities.  Compelling evidence also came from Anthony’s superior regarding his observations of Anthony’s condition after his brush with death.  The newspaper summary of his evidence reads: 

"On looking at Dixon’s face, he found it sprinkled with sparks of power.  His hands and his eyes were the same, his eyes being burned.  On taking hold of his coat, he found a place where bullets had entered, of which Dixon seemed to be unaware.  It was on the left lapel, nearly over his heart.  Witness was told that the bullets had penetrated thirteen folds of cloth.  Thinks there were two holes and in the inner coat where he found a small bullet."

The entire preliminary examination occupied four consecutive days ending January 1.  Because of space constraints, events were reported in the Brockville Recorder on a delayed weekly instalment basis that carried on into February.  By that time, emotions having perhaps calmed down, the publisher appears to have interest since the ultimate outcome of the hearing was never reported.  Brockville jail records, however, indicate that Anthony and his two assistants were discharged on January 1, 1853, the last day of the hearing, there apparently having been no evidence presented to warrant a committal for trial. Anhony was now again a free man after almost twenty-two days of imprisonment. 

The Commissioner of Customs had nothing but praise for Anthony and the way he had conducted himself.  His final report reads in part: 

"It is impossible to review the whole case without being strongly impressed with the conviction that a most daring design was deliberately planned to set the Revenue Laws at nought and that Chamberlain and his party would have achieved their object but for the courage, coolness, and intrepidity of Office Dixon and his coadjutors, the former of whom so narrowly escaped with his life … . The disastrous result on the side of the smugglers following the recent seizure at Brockville may have a salutary effect in checking the evil referred to, especially if Mr. Dixon’s conduct should in the case under consideration be marked with his Excellency the Governor General’s approbation … " 

The result was that Anthony was recommended to be rewarded with a gratuity of twenty-five pounds, an impressive sum for 1853.    Not surprisingly, within a few months Anthony was moved from Brockville to another port, this time to Cobourg.  It was here, after ten years of government service that Anthony again began lobbying for a further salary increase and promotion, a request strongly supported by his superior who described him as “a most zealous, efficient, and attentive officer highly deserving the favourable consideration of the government.” 

Anthony put it more bluntly: 

"I feel I have good claims upon the government, particularly when taking into account the hardships, perils, and degradations which I have undergone while in the discharge of my duty in endeavouring to sustain the Revenue Laws of the Province … my present salary is inadequate for myself and family in light of the high prices now paid for provisions, wood, rent, and other accessories." 

Although his was salary had increased to about one hundred and eighty-seven pounds over the years, Anthony, something of a complainer, frequently lobbied for more money, citing of greater salaries received by others for, he believed, less onerous duties.  In 1856 he wrote: 

"I have faithfully served the customs department for near eleven years and in doing so I have been fired at and beaten by smugglers and imprisoned with felons in the Gaol in Brockville, all of which is known to the Inspector of Ports with whom I was associated … at the Niagara frontier …" 

Although a salary increase was granted, the following year Anthony was once again asking for yet another increase on account of the greater salary a less experienced colleague was receiving.  He was also anxious for promotion. 

That year, promotion at last came when Anthony was made Collector of Customs at Port Darlington.  It appears, however, that Anthony soon became bored.  As early as 1858 he was complaining about the lack of activity at that port and requesting a transfer.  His entreaties fell on deaf ears until 1870 when he was appointed Collector of Customs at Belleville where he would spend his final years. 

Although archival records are for the most part missing for Belleville years, of some interest amongst the material collected by Rebecca Potter Dixon, Anthony’s niece and inveterate family historian.  It is an 1877 clipping from an unknown Toronto newspaper that was profiling the Town of Belleville: 

"The Custom Department at this place is one of the best managed in the Dominion, being presided over by Anthony Dixon, Esq., one of the most popular and efficient Collectors in Canada.  His commission dates as far back as 1845 thus making him one of the senior officers in Her Majesty’s civil service.  Mr. Dixon was in office before the passing of the Reciprocity Treaty, when it was necessary to use knives and pistols in the performance of his duty.  Although he has received many wounds in the service, he retains the marks of only two bullets received in his chest at the hands of the notorious Chamberlain.  His energetic and prompt efforts on both the Niagara and St. Lawrence had great effect in the suppression of smuggling … " 

Although the reference to actual bullet wounds is questionable (the bullets supposedly according to earlier accounts having been stopped as a result of the thirteen folds of clothing worn on account of the cold), Anthony does seem to have been a popular and respected community figure.  He would, however, die a year later in 1878 of an apparent heart attack at the age of fifty-eight.  

Anthony, to large extent, represents a nineteenth century success story.   .  Although he died at a reasonably young age, he managed to live an exceptionally full and interesting life.  From his birth by the shores of Lake Erie to a somewhat impoverished pioneer family, Anthony had risen through the ranks of the Canadian civil service as a senior representative and respected member of his community.  Along the way, he suffered the indignity of imprisonment while facing a spurious charge of murder over an incident that nearly cost him his life.  Not your typical bland civil servant.

 

A Teenager Transported To Australia

 There is no accounting sometimes why children turn out they do.  Isabella Dixon came from a modest but respectable family.  Her father, a career soldier with the prestigious Royal Life Guards, had served in the Peninsular Wars as well as the Battle of Waterloo. While all her siblings lived predictable ordinary 19^th century English lives, Isabella herself had been on the street since the age of sixteen.  After she racked up three progressively longer jail sentences (14, 20, and 21 days) for drunkenness, an Old Bailey larceny conviction at the age of nineteen, England’s draconian laws of the time, ultimately sealed her fate.  That conviction would earn her transportation and banishment to Australia for a period of seven years.

As my first cousin four times removed, Isabella Dixon was born in Knightsbridge Barracks on March 7, 1817, the second eldest child of James Dixon and Diana Calvert. Her father was in turn the son of another James Dixon who had elected to immigrate to Canada in 1818.  Eventually all of James Senior’s nine surviving children born in England would join him there save eldest son James who was contracted to serve as a career soldier.  The fate of daughter Isabella Dixon had always been something of a blank slate until an archival discovery about her one way trip to Van Diemen’s Land as Tasmania was then known in 1836. 

Isabella’s conviction for larceny at London’s Old Bailey Court was recorded on June 13, 1836.  An account of her trial shows that she and a friend had been charged following the theft of a cheque for 20 shillings from an inebriated stranger in a pub.  In the words of the victim, “the prisoner Dixon came and forced herself upon our company --- she asked me for some beer ---I gave her some --- I was a little tipsy --- she sat quite close to me, near enough to take anything from my pocket --- I got home about nine o’clock --- I missed the order when I got home to my lodgings …”.  Although a friend of the victim had been present to witness the theft, he was unable to make the victim understand at the time because he was “in liquor”.  The next day, however, now sober, he and his friend were able to locate Isabella who promptly chose to stow herself in a privy in a futile attempt to avoid arrest.  When eventually apprehended, Isabella admitted that, after stealing the cheque, passing it on to her twenty-nine year old male accomplice who later tried to cash it.  Following conviction for theft in the case of Isabella and possession of stolen goods in the case of her by the accomplice, each of them received a seven year sentence to be served in Australia where they were to be banished. 

During the period between 1788 and 1868, England transported about 164,000 men and women to Australian colonies for various crimes.  Isabella would be one of about 12,500 female convicts transported to Van Diemen’s Land during the period from 1803 to 1853 for what were mostly crimes of theft.  From reasonably detailed convict records, one is able to assemble a mental picture what our errant Isabella Dixon looked like.  Described as a nineteen year old 5’ 3” pockpitted house servant originally from Knightsbridge,  she also had the following descriptors:  Complexion – Fresh, Head – Round, Hair – Dark Brown, Visage – Oval, Large, Forehead – High, Eyebrows – Light Brown, Eyes – Dark Grey, Nose – Medium, Mouth – Wide, Lips – Thick, Chin – Medium.   

Following her conviction, Isabella likely languished in Newgate Prison until she set sail from Woolwich, England on August 9, 1836 on the transport ship Westmoreland.  She was one of 185 female convicts on board, one of whom died en route, before the ship arrived in Hobart, Van Diemen’s Land almost four months later on December 3, 1836.  In a report compiled by the surgeon on the ship, Isabella is described as “very bad, very troublesome”.  During her first three years of banishment, her conduct would more than prove the surgeon right. 

Seemingly having some freedom and employment outside of prison, possibly as a house servant, we find Isabella on December 28, 1836 being returned to the House of Correction for further assignment on account of neglect of duty and insolence.  After an apparent period of good behaviour over the next two years, she then once again lapsed on account of having been absent without leave.  For that infraction she was ordered on February 8, 1839 to be employed in the prison laundry for 14 days and to sleep in a cell at night.  Barely over a month later on March 13, 1839, she was then ordered, on account of being disorderly and insolent, to spend seven days in a cell on bread and water and “returned to the services of the Crown”. 

Shortly after this last lapse, Isabella seems, however, to have settled down.  Given permission on May 24, 1839 to marry a free settler she had met by the name of Joseph Williamson, the two wed in Hobart on July 29, 1839. Technically still serving her seven year sentence, she then, after receiving her Certificate of Freedom in 1843, moved with husband Joseph to Geelong, Victoria in 1847 where she bore eight children over eleven years.  If marriage and children brought Isabella happiness, it was to be short lived. After an eventful earlier life due a lack of judgment and a harsh judicial system, a reformed Isabella died at Birregura, Victoria on November 25, 1858. 

Isabella Dixon, the ancestor about whom once so little was known, has now been tracked down. Although she clearly deserves no credit for her earlier life of public drunkenness and thievery which resulted in her banishment to Australia, in the end, however, she managed to rehabilitate herself and found some measure of stability. She has also managed to add some cachet to our family which can now claim Australian convict ancestry.   

                                                                                                                                 David Arntfield 

The Man Who Reinvented Himself

 My paternal grandmother, Beatrice Maude Clarke (1896-1987) was born in Luton, England, the youngest of two sisters and three brothers, one of whom was George Clarke.  The sisters and parents came to Canada in 1906, two years after the brothers had been placed on farms to work in Western Canada.  It was there in Stephenfield, Manitoba that the entire family would be later reunited in 1907.

Clarke Family About 1904 - George At Right

George Clarke, born March 15, 1891 and later destined to reinvent himself, would have been only a boy of thirteen when brought to Canada and left in the care of his older teenage brothers until the later family reunification.  Although Beatrice and George, the two youngest siblings of the family, were very fond of each other, George would in due course sever all communication with his youngest sister and all other family members as well.  His fate would remain unknown for almost sixty years.  As a child hearing hearing tales of this brother who had simply disappeared, I was fascinated by the story and often wondered what had become of him.

Before the mystery began, George had, after being reunited with his family, for a time worked on their then farm in the Stephenfield, Manitoba area.  Later making his way to the United States in 1913 to seek work, he eventually settled for a time in Topeka, Kansas where he worked as a barber and supplemented his income as a musician playing the violin.

It was in Kansas that George married his first wife Frances.  A daughter, Beatrice Fay, who was born in
1915 was named after his favourite sister, my grandmother Beatrice.  The brother-sister bond was so strong that my grandmother, by then living in London, Ontario, joined her brother during part of World War I while her beau whom she later would marry was serving overseas.  Beatrice, finding work as a switchboard operator with Western Union, lived with her brother and family during this time. 

After the war, my grandmother returned to London but still remained in close touch with her brother.  She learned that, following the birth of her namesake niece, a nephew, Jack, was subsequently born in 1919.  About this time George sent his sister a photograph of himself and his now two children in addition to three amateurish oil paintings he had created.  These paintings would hang for decades in my grandmother's home as a reminder of a cherished brother who had vanished and whose fate was unknown. 

The catalyst for George's disappearance seems to have stemmed from a still surviving letter he had written to his mother from Eureka, Kansas in October of 1920, the year someone has pencilled in beside the postmark on which the year is illegible.  George, described by the family as something of a dreamer, wrote of having abandoned his work as a barber and musician in favour of working in the oil fields of Kansas. He bombastically bragged of being the manager of an oil crew and making the then handsome sum of between one hundred and two hundred dollars per week.  Claiming as well that his wife was "making a lot of money" running a hotel in Eureka, he said life was going to be easy for his children.  He suggested that his brother Tom, then still living in Western Canada, should join him. George boasted the he would "give him a job at the light end" at one hundred dollars per week until he could go rig building and could "finally go contracting himself" and make thousands of dollars.

Whether George's mother ever replied to this letter is not known.  Family lore, however, is that, after the letter was forwarded to his brother, Tom's wife answered.  In what was said to have been a particularly sharp response, she suggested that George, ever the dreamer, should keep his get rich schemes to himself.  It is believed that it was this response that caused he rupture in further family communication by George.  The original over the top letter from George was, following her death, found amongst the personal effects of Tom's wife, the purported author of the stinging reply.  It had been kept by her for some sixty-seven years after George had enthusiastically and bombastically written it. 

After all family communication ended, George's family over the years made various attempts to trace his whereabouts.  On one occasion when radio was the rage in the 1930s, his sister Beatrice heard a broadcast from near Kansas in which the musician playing was said to be a George Clarke. After she wrote a letter of enquiry to the radio station, she received no response other than a crate of several nesting chickens (times were different then) as a prize to the listener writing from farthest afield.  At other times, the family enlisted to no avail the assistance of the Salvation Army, then often a source for trying to find missing persons by searching their shelter records.  Eventually, however, the family gave up and resigned itself to having lost a brother forever.

One surviving document the family possessed was a handmade birth announcement which George has sent to his sister announcing the birth of his daughter Beatrice.  Because the announcement provided her exact 1915 date of birth, during the 1970's on a hunch I requested a copy of young Beatrice's original birth registration from the State of Kansas.  The hunch paid off when it was found that the previously unknown maiden name of George's wife Frances was shown to be McDavitt.  A search of Kansas telephone directories revealed very few listings for people of this not particularly common family name.  After a few blind calls, a great nephew of Frances (McDavitt) Clarke was located.  Although Frances had died, Tom McDavitt, knew not only the California whereabouts of George's daughter Beatrice but also of his son Jack's widow.

A telephone call to his daughter Beatrice started to fill in the gaps regarding her father's fate.  She advised that George and Frances had divorced about 1920 when they were living in Wichita, following which George moved to Oklahoma.  Although Beatrice grew up having no contact with her father for several years, she said that an Oklahoma City newspaper article she read about him in the late 1930s had prompted her to seek him our.  After tracking him down and arranging to visit him, Beatrice learned that her father had remarried and had two or three sons by that marriage.  It was her recollection that he had then left that wife and again remarried, having perhaps had one daughter.  His later wives had apparently been told nothing of his children from his first marriage to Frances.  In the intervening years George had continued with his earlier interest in music. He told his daughter that he was not only then teaching music but also trying to market a small instrument he had invented which was somewhere between a violin and cello with its own unique sound.  After sporadic letter writing following their reunion, Beatrice then again lost track of her father.  He clearly had little fatherly interest in this part of his past.

A later telephone call to the widow of George's son Jack yielded the Oklahoma City address of George's last wife.  With a bit more sleuthing her telephone was located and the last pieces of the George Clarke puzzle fell into place.  It was clear that the third Mrs. Clarke, by now a widow, had been exceptionally proud of her husband.  It soon also became clear that George had been a fraud who chose to reinvent himself after he severed ties with his family.

His widow advised that George, at the time of his death in Oklahoma City on May 26, 1972, had been running a small tax consultant business.  Mrs. Clarke spoke of the special viola her husband had invented and the fact that he had, at least according to him, made some 165 violins during his lifetime.  The story started to unravel, however, when she recounted what he had told her of his early life.  According to George, he had lost track of his family after World War I, something patently untrue since the address to which he had written his mother in 1920 never changed until her 1931 death.  He went on to claim that his family had eventually reported him dead, something that had not only not occurred but was manifestly impossible to know if he had in fact lost track of family members.  He also claimed to have settled in the United States after serving in the Canadian army when in fact he had never seen Canadian military service.  Also according to him, his mother had been a singer and actress when instead she had laboured for hat manufacturers in England and Canada.  Since Mrs. Clarke was quite old when spoken to, she was not disabused of the fantasy world her husband had created for her.

After digging into various other sources, it soon became clear that this fantasy world had started as early as the births of his first two children in 1915 and 1919 when he claimed to have been born in Brussels, Belgium rather than Luton, England.  Clippings about him held by the Oklahoma City library revealed that the deception only grew over the years.  Although he now claimed to have been born in England, lies included the assertion that he was making violins in Paris at the age of seven when in fact he had never been to France.  He also falsely claimed that his father was a concert violinist rather than a common labourer.  It seemed that the deception, perhaps unwittingly, even continued after his death.  His 1972 death certificate misstates his birth year as 1897, six years after his actual birth year.  It also claims that he was born in Arkansas.  His widow as the informant, perhaps misinformed as to his true age, certainly knew, based on her conversation with me, that he was not born in the United States.  Why she became complicit in this last deception is not known.

The rest of my Clarke family in Canada was naturally excited about the fact that the decades old mystery of George's disappearance had finally been solved.  They were equally disappointed, however, to learn that he had shrouded his life in such lies.  At the time in 1977 when the mystery was solved, still surviving were George's brother Harry, aged ninety-one, and favourite sister and my grandmother Beatrice, aged 81.  Unfortunately George had been dead for about five years when finally tracked down.  Given his new life built on lies, any reunion would clearly have been a most awkward affair.

The only happy conclusion to the story was that George's daughter Beatrice was put in touch with the Aunt Beatrice for whom she had been named.  Although she had no memory of the aunt who had stayed with her family during part of World War I, the telephone reunion with her aunt some sixty-two years after her birth seemed an appropriate way to close the circle and to bring closure to the complex saga of George Clarke and his life of deception and fantasy.

                                                                                                                                 David Arntfield 

An Arduous Journey

 

With modern transatlantic travel possible by air in a matter of hours,  it is easy to lose sight of what an ordeal such travel by sea was for our ancestors who settled in Canada in the nineteenth century.  One of those pioneers was James Brown (1807-1895), a maternal third great grandfather who in 1847 settled in Biddulph Township north of London, Ontario.

James and his wife Jane Hopkins (1807-1892) were from County Antrim, Ireland, more specifically an area known as Ballytober about two and one half miles from the Giant’s Causeway, the famous basalt rock landmark in the very north of the County.  Irish immigration to Canada in 1847 would reach an all time high as a result of the calamitous and continuing famine in Ireland. Almost one hundred thousand Irish sailed for Canada that year, known as the “Black 47”, when twenty per cent of the population in Ireland was dying from disease or malnutrition. 

Most of those leaving for Canada travelled in overcrowded and unsanitary ships known as “coffin ships” on account of one in six passengers dying of “ship fever” (typhus) during the voyage or shortly after arrival. The difficult journey endured by thirty-nine-year-old James and his family is recounted almost eighty years later in the 1926 obituary of his daughter Rebecca who lived to the age of ninety-two.  Twelve years of age at the time the family emigrated, she would have been old enough to remember many events for herself and also to have heard other parts of the story repeated by her family. She no doubt had in turn passed the on the story to her own family, the source of the obituary’s details. 

The obituary describes James, his wife, nine children, and a two others (a brother and sister hired to assist the family) initially sailing from the port of Portrush, near their home in Ireland, to the English port of Liverpool.  After arriving at Liverpool, the family remained there for three days until passage was secured for Canada on a sailing ship named “The Beatrice”.  This ship and its complement of about five hundred passengers, appears to have set sail for Canada sometime in April of 1847. 

Things went quickly awry when, six days out, there was an outbreak of fever and measles.  The ship was stopped with about a hundred passengers and some crew being offloaded and returned to Liverpool.  Also offloaded, apparently stolen, was the family’s largest box of provisions, something only discovered two days later after the crossing to Canada had resumed. 

 With thirteen mouths to feed, the Browns would now have to in large part rely on the limited food and water provided to all passengers.  Although the loss was keenly felt, the captain, when made aware of the situation, offered assurance that the family’s young children would not suffer.  As well, James, said to be “well to do”, also was able to receive an extra allowance for all by paying for it.  

The family was on board a total of thirteen long weeks, typical of the time taken for sailing ships at the time.  The obituary recounts that fever, the scourge of all ships, broke out again and five or six passengers died of it and were buried at sea with their bodies wrapped in a large canvas sack with a large stone for weight at the foot. 

Just east of Quebec City the ship was required to stop at the island of Grosse Ile, the immigration and quarantine depot where medical inspections were mandatory for all passengers on ships with fever cases aboard.  The sick were removed and the healthy were allowed to proceed.  

The Brown family, fortunately not stricken with fever, was allowed to proceed to Quebec City where they were then taken on to Montreal before finally landing at Hamilton.  There they secured horses and a wagon and made their way to London where, it is said, they had to undergo further medical examination.  All passed with the exception of James Campbell, one of those hired to assist the family during their journey.  He was placed in the hospital, at the time housed in a building on the Old Market Square, where he died two weeks later.  

In London James is understood to have then hired two wagons to take them to their final destination, the home of William Brown, a cousin living in McGillivray Township.  En route the family stopped for milk at a tavern at Flanagan’s Corners, now Clandeboye, where the proprietor is said to have cheated them on the cost. After finally arriving at their final destination only to find their cousin’s home far too small for all of them, the family decided to take temporary refuge in an old log abandoned schoolhouse which they managed to put it in a liveable condition.

 It was not long, however, before tragedy struck.  James’ three sons all took ill and a doctor was sent for.  Nothing could be done for the boys and they all died, perhaps due to diphtheria or one of the other diseases that could quickly decimate families in those days. The sons were buried in Lewis Cemetery near Clandeboye where two other members of the family, presumably daughters, were also said to have been buried.  It would appear that all of this occurred within the first few years of arrival since there are only four children of James and Jane who were born in Ireland and living with then four years later on the 1851 census. 

The year 1847 was, as previously mentioned a memorable one for tens of thousands of Irish. It seems to have been all the more so for James and his family.  Having made the decision to leave famine stricken Ireland, their ship is racked with fever and measles and most of their provisions are stolen.  They endure a thirteen week passage to Canada under appalling conditions marked by the deaths of several passengers.  After finally clearing the immigration quarantine at Grosse Ile, they arrive in London and immediately lose their hired man to an undetermined illness.  This is shortly followed by the devastating loss of all three sons and two daughters.  Against all this James and his family have to deal with the myriad of other hardships facing a pioneer family in a primitive environment.  Despite these odds, James’ wife Jane, pregnant throughout this ordeal, still manages to deliver, five months after their arrival, the couple’s last child born on Christmas day of 1847.  

In due course James and his family prospered.  Although James’ occupation in Ireland is not known, he took up farming in Canada and, all sons having died, managed with the assistance of his daughters, to clear several acres of land.  An ardent Presbyterian, he also later donated a portion of his land for the erection of a church. 

All Brown family members who survived until adulthood seem to personify the stereotypical hardy pioneer family.  James and his wife lived well into their eighties. With the exception of one daughter who died of pneumonia at the age of sixty, his remaining children also lived long lives, two into their eighties and two more into their nineties, a rather remarkable achievement given their ordeal and expected life spans for the times.  

The story of James and his family is perhaps not unique given that similar hardships were no doubt faced by many leaving the poverty of Ireland for a better life in North America.  Notwithstanding the adversity suffered by all such emigrants, one cannot help but be taken by the particular story of hardship, struggle, and loss that belongs these particular ancestors. 

                                                                                                                               David Arntfield