Wiggins
Mum said you, “You shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth.” But I certainly wished Grampy hadn’t given us four hampers of apples. In September, he had stored a couple of barrels of apples in the spare bedroom but as January approached, brown spots started appearing on them and he felt they wouldn’t keep much longer. Cliff and I figured it would take us all day to peel, core and slice those apples. We also had to string them to dry.
At the Wiggins Homestead in Wiggins Cove, Jacob Wiggins planted an orchard in 1793. In 1828, it yielded one thousand five-hundred barrels of apples and ninety bushels of damson plums. One of the apples is said to have measured 14 inches in diameter.
In 1971, a group of Wiggins descendants, Daniel Turner, Molly Otty, Ronald Purdy, Mrs. Alward Shirley and Arthur Wiggins, published a 144-page book titled “Wiggins” which focussed mainly on the descendants of Jacob Wiggins and Elizabeth Slocum and included information on the ancestry of the Wiggins family.
Jacob and brothers, Samuel and John, came to Saint John with the Loyalists in 1783. John was thrown from a run away stagecoach on Portland Bridge and killed in 1815. When Samuel’s will was probated in 1821 mention was made of nine children. His son, Stephen was the founder of the Wiggins Male Orphans Institution and was supposedly the wealthiest New Brunswicker of his time.
Jacob Wiggins and Elizabeth Slocum were settled on the St. John River in 1786, when he cut a trench from the river to the adjacent marshy lake, in the belief that the latter would eventually fill up and become interval land. This has since been known as “Wiggins Folly”. In 1790 they moved to the Grand Lake.
Their children: William, Mary, Stephen, Hannah, Elizabeth, Martha, Jacob, Esther, Ebenezer, John, Rev. Doctor Abraham - Vanguilden, Ann, Susanna, Samuel, Joseph, Charles Arnold, and James Gilbert married into the families of Branscombe, Briggs, Carey, Gerow, Green, Price, Ralston, Taylor, Tilton, Townshend, Wasson, and White.
Jacob Wiggins died in 1815 and his widow Elizabeth married John Clark.
Edwin Taylor, a grandson, was the inventor and manufacturer of the ‘Taylor Door Bell’.
A Wiggins Family Convention was held in Boston in 1889 with 300 guests present. Wiggins Family Reunions commenced in New Brunswick in 1927.
The Wiggins book is available for viewing at the Saint John Free Public Library and the Kings County Museum.
Another source for information on the Wiggins and other Queens County families is "The History of Queens County" by E. Stone Wiggins, written in a series of articles for the Saint John newspaper, The Watchman, in the fall and winter of 1876 and 1877. The articles were compiled into a publication and can be viewed at several research institutions in New Brunswick.
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Query 1131
Cowan - Corbitt: Who were the parents of Isabella Cowan (1820 - 1890) who married John Corbitt in Saint John on 31 July 1851? Also need information on John Corbitt’s parents, John and Margaret A. Corbitt.
Jean Roberts,
Box 728, Cardston,
Alberta, Canada, T0K 0K0.
E-mail jcelrob@telusplanet.net.
Query 1132
Foster - Flewelling: I am seeking information on the families of William Foster and Elizabeth Flewelling, who moved to Ontario circa 1805 and settled in the Niagara area. Four known children are: Sarah (1806), John Flewelling (1813), Isaac Brock (1816) and James G. (1823). Elizabeth Flewelling married Isaac Smith in Ontario after the death of William Foster.
Jack Peltier,
824 Woodpark Way SW, Calgary,
Alberta, Canada, T2W 2V8.
E-mail peltierj@telus.net.
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