THE JOURNALS OF JOHN BIGGINS ANDREWS
For weeks the aroma of preserves and pickle-making filled the outside kitchen as Mum was busy stocking the cellar shelves for the winter months.
Cliff and I were relieved when the final frost came that ended our job of peeling and slicing cucumbers and tomatoes. But this also signalled the moving of the kitchen stove was fast approaching. Sure enough when we came home from school the next day, there was no sign of supper, the stove was cold and the pipe was on the back stoop along with several broom and mop handles.
Within a few minutes, moving time began. Cliff’s task was to go ahead, keeping the handles in place that I handed him as the stove was pushed on these rollers from the outside kitchen into its regular winter spot.
Once the mess was cleaned up and the stove pipe in place, Mum lit the fire and filled the frying pan with hash - ground roast beef and potatoes - that had been left over from dinner.
She looked rather sad and commented that it soon would be time for the clocks to go back an hour and another season would be gone but then she smiled and told us Spring would be here before we knew it.
It seems that since I have reached my senior years, the seasons really slip by very quickly and I don’t get the family research accomplished that I plan to do. But on Cliff’s visit home this summer, we did visit an abandoned house of one of our ancestors and took lots of pictures being careful to zero in on the trim around the front door and windows which might help us determine its age.
As we stood on the same ground as those before us had trod, we wished our ancestor David had kept a journal with the details of his voyage across the ocean and his life in New Brunswick as John Biggins Andrews did.
Jack, as he was known to family and friends, stated in his writings that he was born in Kingston-Upon-Hull on the East Coast of England on March 02, 1816. He left school when eleven years old. At age fourteen, he made three trips to Miramchi where he left the Lord Mulgrave on September 23, 1830 and walked to Nelson Town and met with Peter Foley, a friend of the captain’s and began a life working in New Brunswick.
One of his first employers was Jedediah Carvell in Nashwaak and after three years working for him, hired on as a cook “in the woods” with Samuel Brown.
In 1835, he walked from Fredericton to Saint John and then on to Linus Seely’s at Long Reach to work on the farm.
The year 1837 brought a short visit to family in England. On his return he found a job in Jacob Carvell’s tavern in Fredericton.
The Journal takes us on many “walking trips” and to “stopping places”and into the homes of the many acquaintances he made throughout New Brunswick as well as to the United States.
John suffered from several bouts of illness and he gives us a look at how sickness was treated in those days.
Indian Town in the North End of Saint John became his home and place of business. It was here, he brought his twenty-year-old bride, Mary Jane Seely in 1850, after their marriage at the home of her parents, Linus Seely and Jane Sterritt.
Six years later on April 1, 1856, he died at age forty, leaving Mary Jane a widow at age 26, with sons Robert aged three years and John about six months.
“The Journals of John Biggins Andrews 1816 - 1856" contain not only daily notes that describe his travels, the weather, his health, ship traffic and sometimes, significant local or personal news but copies of the letters sent to him by his relatives and friends.
His great-great grandson, Gerald T. Davies transcribed and edited the journals into a 266-page publication that is a gold mine of names and occupations of the folk who lived throughout New Brunswick from Miramichi to Fredericton, up the river and then down the river to Saint John, to the Kingston Peninsula and on to Moncton and back to the Miramichi and in other locations.
Gerald donated copies of the book to the Provincial Archives of New Brunswick in Fredericton, the Saint John Regional Library and to other research institutions.
If you are interested in purchasing the publication as a PDF document on a CD or in hard copy, contact gtdavies13@gmail.com (this is a new address).
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Query 1682
Madden - Britt: Daniel Madden who emigrated from Ireland about 1843, married Mary Britt in N.B., and possibly farmed near Campbell Settlement, Sussex Parish, Kings County, N.B. The family moved to Iowa around 1870 where Mary died shortly thereafter. Large family including daughter Bridget and brother Patrick.
Betty Miller
E-mail bjdmiller@yahoo.com
Query 1683
Livingston - Leviston - Dysart - Arnold - Proctor - Plummer: Martha Livingston / Leviston was born in Ireland in 1811, emigrated to Canada in 1829 and married William Dysart in1832 at Trinity Church, Saint John. Their daughter Hopeful married William Arnold and their daughter Eliza married George Proctor. Eliza's daughter, Sarah Amelia, married Joseph William Plummer in Portland, Maine and died with TB there shortly after giving birth to her son Wilson Plummer. Eliza Proctor returned to the family farm in Millbrook, where Wilson Plummer grew up with the children of William and Martha Proctor. Who were the parents and siblings of Martha Livingston? Who emigrated with her? Where was she born in Ireland?
E-mail donaking@nb.sympatico.ca
Query 1684
Trueman - McMonagle - McLeod: Seraph Augusta Trueman, born Nov. 23, 1845, was the daughter of James and Jane C. Trueman. Her first husband was Henry Charles McMonagle, who died young. She married second to Howard D. McLeod on Apr. 26, 1888 in St. Paul’s Anglican Church, Hampton. He retired from a position as a railway superintendent and by the 1901 census of Saint John, his occupation was bank manager. Seraph may have used the name Augusta. When and where did Seraph Augusta McLeod die? What was the maiden name of Seraph’s mother, Jane Trueman?
Carol Norman
E-mail cgnorm@earthlink.net
Ruby M. Cusack is a genealogy buff living in New Brunswick, Canada. Send your New Brunswick genealogical queries to her at: rmcusack@nbnet.nb.ca. Please put "Query" followed by the surnames in your query as the subject. For more information on submitting queries, visit http://www.rubycusack.com/Query-Instructions.html
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