Family Line Founder: William Hornsby Hutchinson
Family Line Founder Series.
This ancestor profile continues a series of posts about my family's first Canadians. I feel that remembering my family's founding members recognizes and honours their courage in leaving behind all that was familiar - family, friends, homeland - for the dream of a new and better life in a wild and sometimes harsh New World.
William Hornsby Hutchinson (1824-1907)
Today, I wish to remember William Hornsby Hutchinson, my 3rd great-grandfather and Hutchinson family founder in Canada. William was born on 15 June 1824 in the North East of England, in the tiny village of Heighington in Durham County (see Figure 1 below).
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| Figure 1: County Durham in England's North East Region. |
Located in the rich farmland of southeastern Durham County, Heighington village was - and still is - a farming community. In ancient times, what is now Durham County formed part of the northern border between Scotland and Roman Britain. During William's time, the county was known for its coal mines that fed a newly-minted railway network and its coal-hungry new steam-driven locomotives.
William's parents were Henry Hutchinson (1785-1861), a weaver and later a grocer, and Jane Hornsby (1784-1851). The second of their three known children, William was baptized at St. Michael's Anglican Church on 7 November 1825. (The church itself [see Figure 2 below] was founded several centuries earlier, before the Norman conquest of England, and is now a Grade I listed heritage building.)
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| Figure 2: West Tower of St. Michael's Parish Church, Heighington, County Durham. |
The Hutchinson family were long-time residents of Durham County. Going back to at least 1735 (and possibly earlier), they lived within a roughly 8 kilometre (5 mile) radius of Heighington village. Both of William's parents were born, lived and died within the parish, and William's two sisters - Elizabeth and Jane - also married and raised their families there.
While little is known about William's early years in Heighington, he and his sisters grew up in a time of turbulent social and political change. Before William was a teenager he saw:
- three different monarchs on the British throne (George IV, William IV, and Victoria);
- slavery abolished in the British Empire;
- protests against the industrialization of agriculture;
- new legislation to limit child labour; and
- a boom in railway construction and technology across England.
For the first few years of their marriage, the couple lived in Heighington, Durham County and also in Middlesbrough, Yorkshire supported by William's work on the railway. But by 1853, the couple had left their home and families, crossed the Atlantic Ocean, and settled in Upper Canada (now Ontario).
By 1855, William and Jane had settled on a 100-acre farm (Lot 18, Concession 5) near the town of Ethel in Grey Township, Huron County (see Figure 3 below). Over the following years the family grew, with William and Jane raising three girls and three boys, including my 2nd great-grandfather William Morley Hutchinson (1854-1938).
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| Figure 3: William's Land Record for Lot 18, Concession 5 in Grey Township, Huron County. |
About 1876, possibly when William (Sr.) was considering retiring from farming, he broke Lot 18 into two 50-acre halves (West 1/2 and East 1/2), giving - or possibly selling - one to each of his youngest sons, Joseph (1861-1924) and Cuthbert (1864-1951). (See Figure 4 below.)
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| Figure 4: Location of William's Farm, Lot 18 Concession 5 (Outlined in Green), Near Ethel in Grey Township. |
But when Joesph defaulted on a mortgage and lost his 50 acres (the West 1/2 of Lot 18), he left Ontario and moved west to the new province of Manitoba. William bought back the 50 acres from Joseph's mortgagee, and left the entire 100-acre parcel, intact, to youngest son Cuthbert.
By 1891, William and Jane's children had grown and started families of their own. At that time, William and Jane were still living at the original 100-acre homestead, but it now belonged to their son Cuthbert and his bride Mary Rosana Breckinridge (1869-1933) - possibly a wedding gift, as they had married the year before.
Sadness touched the Hutchinson family when, in the Summer of 1897, William's wife Jane died at the age of 72. A widower, William moved into his daughter Isabella Hutchinson Ransom's (1859-1930) home in nearby Brussels, possibly to support her after her own husband's (John Ransom) death in 1901. It is there that William died in the Spring of 1907 of a severe bladder infection, only a few weeks before his 83rd birthday.Sadly, both William and his wife Jane's final resting places are currently unknown.
(Note: See blog post Memories of "Fairview Farm" for personal recollections of William Hornsby Hutchinson's homestead when it was owned by his grandson and granddaughter-in-law, George and Eva Balfour Hutchinson. It is unknown if the farm was called "Fairview" in William and Jane's or their son Cuthbert's time, but certainly when it was owned by their grandson George, the farm was known by that name.)
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