Low Down Articles
Echoes from the Past
Article 46 of 111
This article first appeared in the "Echoes from the Past" column of the The Low Down to Hull and Back News.
Reprinted with permission. Search complete list of Low Down Articles.
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More Treasure
What things one uncovers when one is preparing a catalogue of Wright papers which have not seen the light of days in many years. Not long ago, I wrote an Echo column entitled "Would you Believe?" (Column 030). It concerned the memorial to Thomas Wright (older brother, by a year of Philemon).
This memorial seems to have been set up in the refurbished burial ground at Old Chelsea. As there is a footstone with one word incised upon it "FATHER", it may be concluded that it was his children as they matured, one by one, who were showing respect to their old man.
When the Thomas Wright family came from Woburn, Mass., in 1800, the children were declared in Montreal; Thomas Jr. 16, John 14, Polly (Mary) 12, Benjamin Hooper 11, Betsey (Elizabeth) 9, May (Lucy) 7 and Abigail 5. Wife and mother was Mary Sprague.
Now the Wright papers I'm cataloguing show that the widowed Mary Sprague (Spraig) had remarried, this time to John Love. Between them Mary and John managed to hold on to the lots assigned to the children by Letters Patent. As the children grew to age their Uncle Philemon, in his capacity as land agent, bought the lots giving them good value.
If any of the girls had married, the spouse in each case had to sign the document (Quit Claim) in approval.
In the above list of children is May (Lucy). Lucy was to marry twice. Her first husband was a Swede, John Rusenstrom. Rusenstrom came to a sad end by falling into the mill race in the Gatineau River at Christmas after being too close to a bottle or two. He was pulled out by James Finlayson Taylor, clerk for P. Wright and Sons, and son-in-law to Philemon. Rusenstrom was still alive when dragged out but died within a few hours. I wrote an Echo (these columns) about this accident culled from the famous diary of James F. Taylor a little while ago.
Lucy married secondly Thomas Reid from Tipperary, Ireland. They were the progenitors of all the Reids in the Gatineau Valley.
In a very recent Echo (these columns) I told the story of the London Oxfords who were black, how they came to the area with the Wright party in 1800, of how he sold his land, assigned to him with Letters Patent, to Philemon Wright in 1809.
I've seen his name in two or more documents since writing. He and his wife were apparently headed for Quebec City, on one of the Wrights rafts possibly? We don't know.