Great Grandma Was A Fibber

 “One should never trust a woman who tells one her real age. A woman who would tell one that would tell one anything.”

― Oscar Wilde

By that measure of character, it appears that Oscar Wilde would have implicitly trusted my great grandmother Sarah Ann (Vickers) Clarke (1862-1931).  A lifelong fibber about her age, her penchant for doing so may also have had something to do with perhaps trying to appear younger in successive marriages to progressively younger men.

Born in Luton, England, my father’s maternal grandmother’s officially registered date of birth was March 15, 1862.  Her nascent fibbing skills are seen at the time of her first marriage to 27 year old John Gutteridge on March 3, 1883.  Listing her age as 21 when she was in fact 20, a small quibble perhaps since she was only twelve days shy of her 21^st birthday, Sarah would never again be so close to being truthful when marrying.    

Pregnant at the time of this marriage, Sarah Ann would first lose her new husband, six years her senior, after only two months of marriage.  Later in August of that same year, she would also lose the child of that marriage two days after his birth.  Widowed while still 21, Sarah Ann, from that point on apparently decided to set her sights on younger men.

Her next choice two years later was eighteen year old Albert Clarke born February 25, 1867 and a full five years her junior.  When the two were married on August 31, 1885, Sarah claimed to be a 22 year old spinster when she was in fact a 23-year-old widow.  Albert was not above joining in the charade himself.  He claimed to be 21 years of age when actually 18.  Unfortunately, marrying a man younger by five years proved to be no antidote to widowhood.  After five children and the family’s immigration to Canada, in 1907 Albert would suddenly die from a heart condition at the young age of 43. 

After a second widowhood of two years, Sarah was again ready to give marriage a try.  Having been predeceased now by both an older and younger husband, this time she dug deep for her new “boy toy”.  William Williams was only 32 years of age in 1909 when he married a now 47 year old Sarah.  Rather outrageously, Williams would only have been but five years of age at the time of Sarah’s first marriage.  He was but nine years older than Sarah’s eldest child. 

Given her five adult children and a physically obvious age disparity, on this occasion Sarah’s fibbing options were limited.  She did manage, however, this time round to shave four years off her age, claiming now to be 43, eleven years her husband’s senior rather than the fifteen years she in fact was.  Sarah for some reason had been promoting the 1866 year of birth myth as early as 1906, the year the family sailed to Canada, when she claimed to be age forty according to the ship’s manifest. 

After over twenty years of a less than happy marriage to her unfaithful third husband, Sarah died January 14, 1931, at last having a husband who outlived her.  At the time of Sarah’s death, her youngest child, Beatrice (Clarke) Arntfield, believing the fib and clearly unaware of her mother’s true birth date, gave her mother’s death in her obituary as 64 rather than the 68 it was.  Apart from a lifetime of misstating her age, Sarah had also never revealed to any family members the details of her first ill-fated marriage and child.  There are just some things that remain a woman’s prerogative to conceal.

                                                                                                                                 David Arntfield

A Town Named Arntfield

 Look at any good map of Canada and you will find in Northern Quebec, east of Noranda and Rouyn on Highway 117 near the Ontario border, the town of Arntfield.  This town with a population of barely four hundred has a direct historic relationship to our family name. 

That relationship is due to the efforts of my great grand uncle Fred Arntfield. Fred was the youngest son of family patriarch Henry Arntfield who had, before his youngest child’s birth, lost an arm in a tragic industrial accident.  Fred was born April 27, 1872, the day his father would lose his second arm as the result of a similar accident.  It at first seemed that this son was destined to work, as had his father, in the woollen mill, then the principal employer in Hespeler, Ontario where the family lived. Leaving school at the age of ten to help support his family, Fred soon began working twelve hour days at the mill for two dollars per week. 

Bit by bit, however, Fred managed to improve his lot, eventually marrying and moving to Toronto where hw built a fine stone home on Ellis Avenue in Swansea. It was there that he started small dental supply business which saw him convert his basement into a sort of small factory for manufacture of the supplies.  His grandson Don Arntfield recalled drive shafts and belting hanging from the high basement ceilings, all part of the equipment used in Fred’s small manufacturing concern.  

After caring for his mother there until her 1917 death, Fred, a few years later, then decided to try hishand at prospecting for gold.  Said to be the kind of person who made a varied host of friends, Fred had befriended a prospector who announced in the summer of 1923 that he had staked some Crown land

Fred Arntfield

in Fred’s name in Northwestern Quebec for potential gold mining rights.  Intrigued, Fred decided to inspect the property, taking the train from Toronto to Kirkland Lake from where he then walked the fifty to sixty miles to the property which looked like little more than swamp land. 

Deciding, however, not to return home empty handed, Fred, with no mining experience of his own, enlisted the help of another prospector he had met to instruct him on what exactly to look for in the area.  Making use of his newfound knowledge, Fred eventually staked and acquired what turned out to be over two thousand acres of prime gold property in Beauchastel Township.  After several weeks in the Quebec wilderness during which  his wife and three children had not heard from him, Fred, his efforts having paid off, eventually managed to send a telegram, likely from Noranda, exclaiming “we’re in the gold mining business”. 

From that time on Fred and his only son Ray worked full time in the business raising money in winter to be spent in further exploration in the summer.  Grandson Don Arntfield described them both as pioneers going into the area only one year after Noranda had been reached by rail from Southern Quebec and before the existence of any rail service from Ontario. For years Fred and Ray would annually trek into the property from Kirkland Lake along the Toronto and Northern Railway’s right of way.  It was not until the 1930s that there would be rail service from Kirkland Lake to Noranda in the 1930s and the eventual Kirkland Lake-Noranda road would intersect the Arntfield property with another road pushed north from Ville Marie, Quebec. 

Not surprisingly a community would grow up at these crossroads, a community that would end up bearing the name of the nearby gold mine of Arntfield.  After rail service was inaugurated, it was at one time even possible to purchase a preprinted ticket to Arntfield when travelling on the Toronto and Northern Railway. 

With the Arntfield mine showing great promise, the money necessary to put it into production and to build the mill was all raised, mostly in the United States, during the height of the Great Depression with an original capitalization of three million shares.  With gold fever striking the family, even my grandfather, John Denyes Arntfield, a first cousin of Fred in search of work during the depression, worked in the mine for a time. My grandfather also purchased shares in Arntfield Mines Limited, confident that wealth would soon be his. 

At its peak, the company was listed on the stock exchange and garnered a reasonable amount of publicity, particularly when it began actual production in 1936 and poured its first gold brick.  Arntfield, quickly becoming something of a boom town soon boasted a bank, hotel, movie theatre, and bowling alley.  Corporate offices were maintained on Toronto’s Bay Street, Fred at the helm as the quintessential self-made man.  Unfortunately, however, Fred would die on July 28, 1941 in Toronto from injuries received in a motor vehicle accident.  His Globe and Mail obituary paid tribute to his fundraising skills and further stated that his mining career marked one of the few times in Canadian mining history when a mine had been financed and brought to production almost single-handedly by one man. 

Fred’s death also marked the end of production at the mine.  While almost three million dollars of gold at the then prevailing prices had been taken out of the mine, cash flow problems and thinning veins of gold which could only produce low grade ore eventually ended operations.  Although a much better grade of ore was found towards the end of the mine’s history, the find came too late.  With the final blow said to be the breakdown of the giant jaw crusher needed for production, the mill had to be shut down. 

After Fred’s death, his son Ray reorganized the company, paid debts, and made numerous attempts to refinance mine operations.  His continued enthusiasm and belief in the future potential of the mine is very much evident in correspondence from him in the 1960s.  That continuing gold fever on his part perhaps explains why, despite a continuing poor economic climate for gold mining, Ray for years continued to use his own money to keep the property in good standing.  Upon Ray’s death, his son Don continued the dream for a few years until eventually the Province of Quebec confiscated the property for tax arrears and sold it to another concern. 

Arntfield 1946 Postcard

Arntfield today is a fairly dreary small French Canadian town of 400 which is part of the Regional
Municipality of Noranda-Rouyn.  Apart from posing in front of the sign proclaiming the name of the town approaching and leaving Arntfield or sending home a postcard stamped at the Arntfield post office, there is nothing much to do of interest for any family member who might visit there.  Although the glory days of the Arntfield gold mine and the boom town it created are long over, the Arntfield name lives on as a very small dot on the map. Present day Arntfields, all related, can claim a family connection to that dot thanks to Fred Arntfield so long ago.   

                                                                                                                                David Arntfield

                                                                                                                                

A Witch In The Family

The infamous 1692/1693 Salem witch trials were a notorious chapter in American history marked by religious extremism, mass hysteria, and a scant regard for due process. Out of the many women charged with witchcraft during this period, fourteen were sentenced to death by hanging following their convictions. Though a distant relation, Susanna (North) Martin (1621-1692), the wife of my 9^th great grandfather, was one of those women.

Susanna North was born in Olney, Buckinghamshire, England in 1621 to Richard and Joan (Bartram) North.  Arriving in Massachusetts about 1639 with her father, stepmother, and one known sister, Susanna married blacksmith George Martin (1618-1686) in 1646.  This was a second marriage for George, his first wife having died the previous year leaving him with two-year-old daughter Hannah (1643-1670), my future 8^th great grandmother, to care for.  Given Hannah’s age at the time, her step-mother, later destined to be hanged for witchcraft, would be the only mother she ever knew.

After settling in Amesbury, Massachusetts where they had eight children, George and Susanna over the years frequently found themselves in court at odds with their neighbours and even members of their own family in a myriad of cases including slander, theft, physical abuse, wrongful imprisonment, and disinheritance.

Susanna, though a devout Christian, had a reputation of being outspoken, defiant, and contemptuous of authority. As a result, she had long been the victim of gossip, Puritans in The Massachusetts Colony being inherently suspicious of anyone who did not conform. It is perhaps not surprising then that as early as 1669, well before the Salem witch trials, she first found herself accused of and charged with witchcraft. Although there is no known account of the evidence that was presented at trial, records indicate that though convicted of the offence at trial, she was later exonerated on appeal.   

The Puritans believed that life was a constant struggle with the devil who, in return for their loyalty, was able to give humans, the power to afflict others — turning them into witches practising witchcraft. In 1692, twenty-three years after her first trial, Susanna, by then an impoverished 70-year-old widow, found herself once again charged with witchcraft at the height of a wave of witchcraft fervour which had suddenly taken hold throughout much of the Colony.

It all began earlier in the year when some young girls in Salem began to suffer fits and exhibit strange behaviour, including writhing, screeching, weeping, and sometimes barking for all of which there seemed to be no medical explanation. After some adults concluded that the behaviour had to be on account of bewitchment, the finger pointing began, the girls providing the names of those neighbours who they claimed were the witches causing their distress. As the girls became more and more the centre of attention, the more names they provided. The list in due course grew to include some who, though not living in Salem, had long been reputed to be witches. Susanna Martin of Amesbury, some 20 miles from Salem, was one of those people.

Charged with acts of witchcraft against Mary Walcot, Abigail Williams, Ann Putnam, and Mercy Lewis, Susanna was arrested and taken to Salem on April 30, 1692. Following a preliminary hearing before her accusers and her plea of not guilty, Susanna was subsequently transported to nearby Boston where she was kept in jail until her June 29, 1692 trial.

Susanna’s accusers, supposedly possessed of the devil whenever in her presence, at times convulsed and cried with pain. Much of their evidence was spectral evidence, testimony that they had seen in a dream or vision the shape of the person afflicting them. The usual straight talking Susanna was having none of it. To her later detriment no doubt, she laughed out loud at what she viewed as theatrics, denounced the girls as liars, and engaged in a testy exchange with the presiding judge.

Amesbury neighbours who had long considered Susanna to be a witch jumped at the chance to air their own grievances. Some two dozen of them came to Salem to testify and bolster the testimony of Susanna’s accusers. Their myriad of bizarre accusations, apart from Susanna supposedly having afflicted several of them with fits, included claims that she had driven a man’s wife mad, caused another man’s oxen to drown themselves, attempted to recruit others into witchcraft, and sent a man devils disguised as puppies.  

Susanna, like all others charged with witchcraft during this chaotic period, was a victim of what scholars describe as mass or epidemic hysteria. It is phenomenon where collective illusions or threats, real or imaginary, are transmitted through a population as a result of rumours and fear. It leaves groups of people often honestly believing that they may be suffering from a similar disease or ailment. 

Not surprisingly given the religious fervour of the times, Susanna's one day trial resulted in a same day conviction, following which she was sentenced to death by hanging along with four other women who had also been found guilty of witchcraft at earlier trials. On July 16, 1692 all were hanged at a spot known as Gallows Hill, following which their bodies were consigned to a shallow grave at a now unknown location. Had they admitted their guilt, they, as was the case of the eleven who did, their lives would have been spared.

Between February 1692 and May 1693 more than two hundred people were accused of witchcraft with thirty either pleading or being found guilty. Of these, fourteen women and five men were executed by hanging. One man who refused to plead was pressed to death, an archaic form of punishment which involved an increasingly heavier load of stones being piled on the chest until a person could no longer breathe. 

Going into 1693 witchcraft hysteria was beginning to run its course. The credibility of the girls making the accusations was now being questioned. The accusations were becoming too bold. After his own wife was accused of witchcraft, the governor of the Colony decided the time had come to put an end to the trials. 

Salem residents soon came to realize that innocent people had been executed as a result of hysteria which had gripped the Colony. What gripped it now was a profound sense of sudden remorse. In the months and years that followed, apologies were offered by judges, former jurors, and even one of the girl accusers. Pardons were issued and convicted witches or the descendants of those hanged were offered compensation. The former eagerness to convict was replaced with an eagerness to atone for a decidedly dark and shameful chapter of American history. 

A Puritan minister who attended Susanna's trial, after observing her combative nature as she stood her ground, described her as "one of the most impudent, scurrilous, wicked creatures of this world". History has been kinder. Although clearly feisty and at times quarrelsome, she is better remembered as a strong woman who demonstrated remarkable courage as she forcefully spoke out against the injustice she faced. 

Residents of the Town of Amesbury later placed a stone marker near Susanna and George Martin's home that perhaps sums it up best: 

"Here stood the house of Susannah Martin. An honest, hardworking Christian woman accused of being a witch and executed at Salem, July 19, 1692 ... A Martyr of Superstition."

                                                                                                                              David Arntfield

More Dead Than Alive

Selig Ährenfeld, his name later anglicized to Henry Arntfield, was the single German ancestor of the only fifty or so descendants who still bear this unusual surname in all of North America.  During his lifetime he would survive two catastrophic industrial accidents which would leave him severely disabled
for the last twenty-five years of his life. 

Our ancestor was born in Bützow in what is now Germany on March 3, 1831 to Jewish parents Ahraham Ährenfeld and Jette Mendel.  This was at a time when what would be future Germany was a still collection of various autonomous kingdoms, duchies, and states. Although all that would change with the 1871 unification of Germany, Selig’s birth city of Bützow was then part of the Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin.

In 1852 at the age of twenty-one young Selig Ährenfeld decided to leave his homeland and immigrate to Canada.  His chosen destination was Ontario’s Waterloo County where there was already a large German presence in Berlin (later Kitchener) and surrounding towns.  In fact, by 1848 some nine thousand German immigrants had already arrived there. German immigration was high during the 1850s, a logical consequence of crop failures and famine across Europe in the preceding years.  Before German immigration finally peaked in 1854, many German states even provided assisted passage to ease population pressures and demands of social welfare.

Apart from wanting to better his lot in a new land, avoidance of military duty, although a supposition, may also have been a compelling reason for Selig’s decision to emigrate.  This conjecture is on account of an archival source, cited as the “commission”, mentioned by a German researcher in 2003.  One of its documents was said to refer to our ancestor, a merchant’s clerk “in very good health”, who was due to begin compulsory military service in the army of the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg in October of 1852.  Hamburg passenger list records show that Selig's emigration was on March 31, 1852, some five months before this military service was to begin. Opportunities in a new land as well as a desire to skip out on his imminent military service may thus have both been decisive factors in his decision to emigrate.

The result was that our 21-year-old ancestor sailed from Hamburg with, it appears, no other family members accompanying him.  His occupation on the manifest is given as "drechsler", a turner or one skilled in turning wood on a lathe, a skill which he would never put to use in Canada to earn a living. The ship he sailed on, The William Ash which flew an English flag, took him from Hamburg to New York City, likely via England. What may have been a reference to this departure was noted by local diarist Friedrich Seidel whose September of 1852 diary entry reads:

“A miller by the name of Wolf and the son and daughter of the “Jew” Abraham Ährenfeld emigrated to America.” 

(Although likely referring to Selig, the notation is confusing given his March departure for Canada months prior to the entry.  Equally problematic is the reference to a sister accompanying him, something unsupported by the passenger manifest for the William Ash. Despite these contradictions, the parentage provided is accurate. As well, since the only two other known sons of Abraham were by this time dead, by process of elimination the reference would clearly seem to be to Selig.)

Although the German ports of Hamburg and Bremen offered Quebec City passenger service via England, Seelig and most other immigrants preferred the direct and faster service to New York from Rostock. This was the route also chosen by Selig's future wife, Mary Schall.  At the age of twenty in 1852 with her mother and stepfather, she too in 1852 separately immigrated on a different another ship bound for Canada from Mecklenburg on a passage which likely bore similarities to that of Selig's.  Oral tradition passed on to her grandson Ray Arntfield was that her passage took three months and that many passengers, as was then usually the case, died en route.  She then “came as far as Buffalo by train and the rest of the way by ox-cart”. 

Selig and Mary Schall, although from the same general area of Germany, had not previously known each other before their separate arrivals in Canada within a short time of each other. Oral tradition from grandson Ray Arntfield was that: 

“Mary met another German boy who had come to Canada at almost the same time although they had not known one another in Germany”. 

A notation in the Arntfield family bible indicates that Selig married Mary within two months of her arrival in Canada.  Similarly, an unsourced obituary from a German language newspaper indicates that Henry arrived in Canada in 1852 and “soon after married Mary Schall”. 

The first Canadian census for which Selig, (now referred to as Henry) and Mary were present was that of 1861 when they are found living in Galt with their then four children.  The religion of all household members is erroneously listed as Roman Catholic.  By 1871 the family had settled in Hespeler where Henry had found employment in a local saw mill.  This census shows a now expanded family of eight children (two others are known to have died) living with Henry and Mary. On this census the family religion is correctly recorded, Henry shown as “Isralite” and Mary as Lutheran.  This census also records the fact that Henry had by this time lost his right arm.  This was due to an industrial accident sometime between 1861 and 1871.  Grandson Ray Arntfield records: 

“He was caught in the shafting and belting of a saw mill and belted aloft in the machinery until his one arm was torn out by the roots.” 

At the time of the 1881 census, although the family was still in Hespeler, the three oldest children and the fifth child, now adults, were out of the home.  The fourth child had by this time died.  There are now two new sons who are part of the household, one of whom, though listed as a son, is actually an illegitimate son of eldest daughter Caroline.  The family religion is now recorded as Evangelic Christian. 

Although no disabilities whatsoever are noted for Henry (the 1871 census having disclosed he was missing his right arm), it is likely that Henry, based on family oral tradition, had by this time already suffered his second industrial accident.  This, remarkably, had resulted in the loss of his left arm.  Grandson Ray Arntfield writes: 

“Years later [after the first accident] when he was foreman in a woollen mill he lost his balance and fell into a cutting machine which he was repairing and his remaining hand was caught in the knives and fed into the machine until his body clogged the works.  They found his body, more dead than alive and that was the day my father was born --- a six and half month boy --- grandmother’s eleventh and last.” 

The exact date of this second tragic accident can thus be pinpointed as April 27, 1872 since that was the day that Ray’s father Fred was born.  It was Ray’s separate recollection that Henry, it was said, that the accident occurred after Henry had been called back to the mill at night to repair the machine, and that, following the accident, he had, rather amazingly, not been taken to hospital but brought home “more dead than alive” following the incident. 

Although the subsequent 1881 census was silent on disabilities, the 1891 census does mention that Henry had lost both his arms.  Life was clearly not easy for Henry and Mary after his second accident.  Grandson Ray writes: 

“Strange to say, Grandfather survived and from then on. Grandmother had not only all the kids to raise, also the adopted ones, and also had to do everything for grandfather, dress and undress him, cut up his food, put it in his mouth, take him to the bathroom, and keep boarders to find a few bucks.  Needless to say it was a mighty poor existence they worked out but they lived like that for twenty-six years until after I was born.  Father had to leave school at ten years of age and go to work at the woollen mill at two dollars per week with twelve hour days.” 

Despite all, the family managed to survive on the income from the boarders taken in and from those adult children who were able to provide some financial support.  Although there was clearly not much work to be had for an armless labourer, Henry persevered.  An1878 directory for Hespeler lists a Hy “Ardfield” who was working as a pedlar; life as a pedlar without arms must have presented a host of challenges. Later directories record that Henry worked as a tobacconist.  One assumes, given his disabilities, that as a tobacconist Henry had to have help in the store or strongly rely on the assistance and honesty of customers helping out with the transacations.

Henry carried on in this fashion until his December 20, 1899 death of apparent heart problems.  Although later census records listed him as Protestant, at death his religion is once again recorded as Hebrew.  His entire estate consisted of five hundred and sixty-five dollars, mostly consisting of inventory in his tobacco store.  His wife Mary would go on to survive him for almost another eighteen years. 

Although Henry fathered eleven children, three would die as youngsters and three more as young adults.  It is only through three sons that the Arntfield name continues in North America to-day.  Henry’s grandson Ray  perhaps summed it up best when he described his numerous aunts and uncles as “short lived and rather harum-scarum”. 

Henry’s challenges in life, although perhaps due to a certain amount of carelessness on his part, also underscore the incredible inadequacy of safety standards in factories at the time.  Despite all, in an era without the remarkable prosthetics of to-day, Henry managed to cope with his daunting disabilities for almost three decades until his death.  His resilience serves as an example for us all. 

                                                                                                                                   David Arntfield 

                                                                                                                     

My Grandfather Killed Bandits

To a child’s mind it was an exciting combination of courage, adventure, and old west banditry.  So appeared to me the military experience of my paternal grandfather John Denyes Arntfield (1894 – 1983) in what is formally known as the Mexican Expedition or informally the Pancho Villa Expedition. 

It is no wonder my imagination was fired up.  Amongst my grandfather’s possessions was a post card written to his mother in 1916 with a picture, an apparent official army photograph for home consumption, of five mounted soldiers viewing a man dead on the ground.  The message to his mother scribbled on the back was “This is one of the bandits we got while they were on a raid”.  To add to the excitement was a mark above one of the soldier’s heads.  It was always represented that the soldier beneath the mark was my grandfather.

Francisco “Pancho” Villa (1878 – 1923) was a Mexican bandit whose paramilitary forces during the Mexican Revolution had made a military incursion into Columbus, New Mexico in January of 1916 killing 18 people and looting the town.  This and previous attacks the same year on United States property as well as the execution of 17 Americans within Mexico had been in protest of the support of the United States was giving to the existing government of Mexico. 

The New Mexico incursion and murder of several of its citizens was, however, the last straw for the United States.  In March of 1916 President Woodrow Wilson (1856 – 1924) ordered General John “Blackjack” Pershing (1860 – 1948) to lead an expeditionary force of 10,000 men into Mexico to capture Villa. 

As a result Pershing (later to gain renown as leader of American forces during World War I) led an expeditionary force of 10,000 men on a punitive incursion into Mexico in search of Villa.  George Patton, the General George Patton of World War II fame, was one of his aides. 

Although the expedition engaged in some skirmishes with mixed success, the mission was ultimately unsuccessful and forces withdrew in January of 1917 without capturing Villa who lived on until his 1923 assassination.  During the time Pershing was in Mexico with his men, there were also many troops stationed at El Paso, Texas assigned to border patrol duty.  It appears that my paternal grandfather was one of these troops. 

As an off and on again resident of Detroit, my grandfather, always resourceful in obtaining employment, no doubt saw an opportunity when he decided in 1916 to join the Michigan National Guard at age 22.  A brief history of the 31^st Michigan Volunteer Infantry, my grandfather’s unit, indicates that it departed in June of 1916 for service at the El Paso, Texas border.  The unit’s time there is described as generally uneventful, consisting mainly of guard duty, drill instruction, and marches.  In November of 1916 after Pershing’s unsuccessful efforts, the 31^st was ordered back to Michigan.  Although no records of his service have to date been located, it is assumed that my grandfather signed on for only the duration of the expedition since May 3, 1917 finds him back in Canada enlisting for World War I. 

Whether my grandfather’s unit ever had a cavalry branch is unknown just as is whether or not the post card of soldiers with a dead bandit that so fascinated me as a child actually depicts my boyhood hero.   My grandfather, with  a lifelong penchant for self-aggrandizement, was not beyond telling tall tales when it suited his purpose. 

Another post card sent home to his mother with the inscription “U.S. Soldiers On The Mexican Border” with a mark ostensibly above my grandfather along with several other prone soldiers engaged in rifle drill may or may not also depict him.  His message to his mother on this card was “These are true photos of what is going on down here”.  Once again there is a mark above a soldier my grandfather claimed to be him.

Research tends to indicate that my grandfather’s infantry unit time while stationed at El Paso, Texas was limited to only mundane soldiering drills for the duration of the expedition.  Whether or not he ever made an official incursion into Mexico is unknown.  He always represented, however, that he had in fact been to Mexico and in fact spent one night in a jail there.  Although the circumstances were never made clear, my grandfather was a hard living man and it may have involved some drunken escapade while on leave after crossing the border El Paso shares with Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.  It has been recorded that one of the reasons for the general failure of the expedition was the attraction of liquor provided by cantinas that remained open all night to provide service to thirsty soldiers.  

It is entirely likely that, though serving with the general Pancho Villa Expedition, my grandfather never saw any active service in Mexico itself.  The only true representation of him during the expedition may be the photograph of him in his U.S. army uniform.  For me, however, he is still the mounted soldier in the post card who maybe, just maybe, killed the Mexican bandit.  

                                                                                                                                   David Arntfield 

For King And Country

                                       

Our earliest known Canadian ancestor was James Dixon who arrived in 1818 from Yorkshire with his then wife and seven of his nine surviving children.  Although another son would choose to later join his father and siblings in Canada, eldest son James remained in England as a career soldier.  During that career he would serve three sovereigns and participate in two important nineteenth century military campaigns. 

In 1812, while still only eighteen, James Junior enlisted with the First Regiment of the Life Guards in London.  The Life Guards is the most senior regiment of the British Army and now forms part of the Household Cavalry.  

The mounted regiment of the Household Cavalry, sometimes known as the Royal Horse Guards or Royal Life Guards, carries out mounted ceremonial duties on State and Royal occasions and acts as the Queen’s mounted escort in protecting the Sovereign.  Its ceremonial uniform is familiar from both photographs of such occasions as well as its role of mounted guard duty outside Horse Guards, a building near London’s Whitehall.  

A clue as to James’ military experience first surfaced in a rudimentary Dixon family tree compiled, it is believed, towards the end of the nineteenth century by two distant cousins with an interest in family genealogy.  The brief descriptor of James in the family tree after his name is: 

“Major Farrier of the Royal Life Guards, fought at Waterloo” 

With this clue, correspondence during the 1970s with the then curator of the Household Cavalry Museum in London yielded significantly more information from its well maintained archives.  James, we learn, enlisted with the Royal Life Guards on October 5, 1812 at the stated age of eighteen years.  (This accords with his christening record which suggests he would have been about eighteen years and five months.)  We also learn that he was a blacksmith at the time of his enlistment.  Physically he was five feet eleven inches in height with a fair complexion, grey eyes, and brown hair.  He was assigned the regimental number 41.  

The Household Cavalry Museum records confirmed, as the rudimentary family tree had earlier recorded, that James was a farrier for the entirety of his period of service.   A farrier, one responsible for the hoof trimming and shoeing of horses, is a historical reference to someone in charge of a cavalry regiment’s horses.  It is understood that a farrier’s duties also extended to killing those horses badly injured in battle which had to be put down.  James’ blacksmithing skills were no doubt first learned and passed on from his father who had his own blacksmith shop in Yorkshire.    

A note made during the 1930s by Rebecca (Dixon) Potter (1856 – 1938), granddaughter of the senior James and an inveterate collector and keeper of Dixon family records, attributes James Junior’s decision to join the Life Guards to a marriage disapproved of by his family.  Her note reads: 

“James Dixon, grandfather’s eldest son, married a girl who worked for grandfather.  His family was very angry at him and he had some words.  He went straight to London and enlisted, though but seventeen years old.  He became a farrier major and shoed the King’s horses.  He had learned blacksmithing from his father …” 

Although James’s family may well have disapproved of his marriage, things did not occur exactly as stated.  Firstly, as previously indicated, James was a bit beyond his eighteenth birthday when he enlisted.  Secondly, archival records disclose that his first marriage to a Dinah Calvert did not occur until May of 1813, some seven months after his enlistment.  The notion that James “shoed the King’s horses” may or may not be accurate.  If so, it is no doubt premised on the historical role of James’ regiment acting as the King’s bodyguard and in having its barracks near his London residence. 

After James’ 1813 marriage to Dinah in Romford, Essex, a daughter was said to have been born three months later. (No archival record has been found for this daughter who may have died as an infant.) This was followed by two daughters and two sons born between the years of 1815 and 1821.  All four children were baptized at St. James’ Church near London’s Piccadilly Circus.  

The fact that James was married in Essex was no doubt because he had been posted to a drafting depot formed there in 1812 for deployment of troops for service in the Peninsular War.  The Peninsular War waged between 1808 and 1814 was one phase of the Napoleonic Wars that was fought in the Iberian Peninsula by Great Britain, Portugal, and France who had occupied parts of the Peninsula. His marriage was probably with knowledge of his imminent deployment since records show that he was ordered abroad to serve in the Peninsular War just after he wed.  He left Romford in late May 1813 and arrived by ship in Lisbon July 19, 1813 for a  stay in Portugal lasted until July of the following year.  

In April of 1814 year James’ regiment was again deployed to continental Europe.  On this occasion James saw service in the Netherlands, France, and present day Belgium.  His service record specifically notes that he was present for the Battle of Waterloo in June of 1815.  This epic battle with some twenty-three thousand troops under the command of the Duke of Wellington marked the final historic defeat of Napoleon. 

The 1st and 2nd Life Guards formed the front charging line of the Household Cavalry Brigade at Waterloo.  The famous charge against the French Cuirassiers took place at the height of the battle and save the British centre from being overrun.  Although James' specific role in all of his is unknown, there is the following interesting entry about the battle in the previously referenced Rebecca (Dixon) Potter notes:

“Uncle Jim stopped at one time to shoe a couple of horses.  After shoeing them he jumped onto his horse and started to overtake the regiment.  He met a man, who seeing he was a British soldier called out to him:  “You are riding right into the enemy’s ranks!”  Uncle Jim whirled around and rode in the opposite direction.  He had two horses shot out from him [in another incident it appears] and the great peaked hat he wore was pierced in several places.” 

It is of course always difficult to separate fact from embellishment in such oral family traditions.  Whatever the truth, it makes for a somewhat compelling narrative.  Equally compelling is the following additional note: 

"He was one of the Queen's [was "Kings" at that time] Life Guards and one of the 100 who volunteered to go to the Battle of Waterloo.  There were four ladies allowed in each regiment and his wife Dinah was one of them.  She killed one man by sticking the spout of a teakettle into him for attempting to ill use another woman. ..." 

The bulk of this second account is clearly suspect.  Apart from the fact that James’ wife was seven months pregnant at the time, the curator of the Household Cavalry Museum considered it doubtful that James’ first wife was permitted to accompany him during any posting since “wives of other ranks did not accompany their husbands overseas during the Peninsula Campaign or at Waterloo”.   Despite the apparent inaccuracy of this entry, it is tempting to speculate that the bizarre teakettle incident referred to or something similar may have occurred under different circumstances when the family was back together in England.  

James, after remaining as part of the Army of Occupation following Waterloo, later returned to England in February of 1816.  It appears that James’ first wife may have died five years after that, perhaps during the birth of her fourth child born in February of 1821, since James was a widower at the time of his August 1821 marriage to Jane Birket, herself a widow.  The marriage took place in London at St. George’s Church in Hanover Square near Oxford Circus.  It appears that Jane may have previously been married to William Birket, a fellow cavalryman of James.  Although they would go on to have a son John born in 1831, James would again be a widower following Jane’s death in 1833. 

James was discharged from service with the rank of Farrier Major on February 1, 1828 at the age of forty-two.  The reason given for his discharge was on account of rheumatism.  His character was assessed as good and he was awarded a pension of one shilling, one and one-half pence per day. 

Little is known of James during his subsequent years other than that he was still alive in 1851.  In a surviving 1852 letter to his half brother Anthony in Canada from James’ first cousin Ann Pickard it is stated: 

“We had your brother from London here in October.  He came here with cousin John William Dixon from near Harrogate where he had been staying for the good of his health.  He found much benefit.  He is looking well and fat.” 

James died in Ripon, Yorkshire during the last quarter of 1880 at the age of 80 having survived two wives and three of his five adult children. Although James never set foot in Canada, all three of his sons did, two of them staying permanently. 

Son James was in Canada by 1851 when he is found living with relatives in Etobicoke Township.  He subsequently married, moved to Barrie, and raised a family.  The other two sons were apparently sent out to Canada as boys.  Although such a move is hard to understand by to-day’s standards, Rebecca (Dixon) Potter writes: 

"George was sent to Canada in care of a family who had a boy about the same age.  George had a barrel and box full of good clothing which these people stole from him.  Uncle Jim at the same time sent his saddle and cloak which he had used in the war." 

This son also remained in Canada, married and raised a family. What became of the cloak and saddle is unknown.  The last son, John, born of James’ second marriage was brought back to Canada by patriarch James.  Rebecca (Dixon) Potter writes: 

“After Dinah died Uncle Jim married again and from this marriage had one son called John.  When Grandfather went to England he brought this boy back with him.  He was very red headed and stayed for [illegible] years and then went back to London, England.  It is supposed this son got all the father’s property but neither his brothers or any of the other Dixons know anything about him.” 

Since it is known that patriarch James visited his mother and other relatives in England in 1851, it is following this visit that ten year old John would have been brought to Canada.  

James, major farrier, Royal Life Guardsman, and Battle of Waterloo survivor stands out as a relative, although a remote one, with an interesting military career.  As a member of an elite regiment who participated in perhaps the most famous battle of the time, his well documented career provides interesting historic insight into his storied military experiences during the nineteenth century.

                                                                                                                                 David Arntfield