Gravestone Art: The Mandeville Family of Woodhouse

Although relatively common in England, very few gravestones in Ontario are as ornately carved as this monument from Woodhouse United Church Cemetery near Simcoe, Ontario. Carved from sandstone, the stone marks the grave of John Mandeville who died in 1845.

John, the son of James Mandeville and his second wife, Maria Debow, was born in Pompton Plains, Morris County, New Jersey, even though his parents were residents of Woodhouse Township in Upper Canada. The records of the Dutch Reformed Church of Pompton Plains give John's date of birth as January 22, 1835.

John Mandeville (1833-1848)

Close to John's grave is the grave of his father who died in 1876 at the age of 80. Also nearby is the gravestone of Margaret Van Ness, James's first wife who died in 1820.

Margaret van Ness, daughter of Jacob Van Ness (1772–1822) and Christiana Mead (1774–1840), was born in Pompton Plains on January 2, 1796. While a marriage has not been found, James and Margaret's daughter Margaret, born in 1818, was baptised at the Dutch Reformed Church of Pompton Plains on August 15, 1819. The baptism register notes that her mother, Margaret Van Ness, was deceased, which conflicts with the year of death inscribed on her gravestone.

James and Margaret may also have had a daughter, Elizabeth, who married Samuel Harris Ryerse (1815-1890) in Woodhouse in 1839. Census data indicates that Elizabeth was born in 1820 in Upper Canada. Elizabeth was the mother of at least six children, and died in Woodhouse in 1899.

James Manderville married Maria Debow at Pompton Plains on October 2, 1827. Maria, the daughter of John Debow (1780–1841) and Sarah Drummond (1775–1820), was born on December 26, 1806 and would have died sometime before 1849.

Maria and James had a daughter, Clarrisa, who was born at Pompton Plains in 1833, and another son, Nicholas, who was born in Woodhouse about 1838. There may have been other children who died young.

Margaret Van Ness (1798–1820)

James Mandeville married for the third time around 1849. Esther Mann had been previously married to Thomas Richardson and had seven children. James and Esther's daughter Agnes was born in 1850 and appears with her parents, her half-brother Nicholas, and her seven Richardson step-siblings in the 1852 Census. Esther was 20 years younger than James and died before 1861.

Agnes Mandeville died on June 28, 1866, at the age of 16, and was buried at Doans Hollow Cemetery. Her half-brother Nicholas married Sarah Scarlett (1837–1929) in 1858 and had four children. Nicholas died in 1873, three years before his father, and is buried at the Culver-Collver Cemetery. Nicholas's sister Clarrisa married Philander Bagley in 1850 and had at least two children. She died in Woodhouse in 1910, and was buried at the Port Dover Cemetery.

James Hendrick Mandeville, the son of Hendrick Mandeville and Sophia "Fytje" Gillalin (1775–1830), was born in Pompton Plains on December 28, 1796. It is unknown when he first emigrated to Upper Canada, however, he made at least two extended trips back to Pompton Plains. Census data shows James living in Woodhouse Township, Norfolk County in 1852, 1861 and 1871.

Sophia's name appears as Sopiha Gilldan on her gravestone, as Fyche Cjillelen on the record of her marriage to Hendrick in 1794, and as Fytje Gillalin on the record of James's birth. James had eleven siblings, and in the baptism register of the Dutch Reformed Church of Pompton Plains, Sophia Gillalin is how the name usually appears. Fytje is a diminutive of Sophia.

Mandeville researchers have often claimed that Hendrick's father was David Mandeville (1746-1824) who emigrated to Upper Canada before the War of 1812 and who settled in Southwold Township in the London District. The problem with this theory is that while David and his second wife had a son named Hendrick, he wasn't born until 1797.

Hendrick was likely the son of Johannes Mandeville (1739-1805) and Claesje Mandeville (1742-1831). Johannes and Claesje were cousins. Hendrick's oldest son was named John and he also had a daughter named Claesje (1802-1818).

The Mandeville family can trace their ancestry back to Yellis Jansen de Mandeville (1626–1701). In 1659, Yellis emigrated with his wife and four children from the Dutch province of Gelderland to New Amsterdam, a few years before the settlement was captured by the British and renamed New York.

Sources:

Akerly, Lucy Dubois. "Yellis Jansen de Mandeville of Garderen, Holland, and Greenwich Village on Manhattan Island and Some of His Descendants", New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, Vol.38 (1907), pp. 284-93.

Ancestry.com. U.S., Dutch Reformed Church Records in Selected States, 1639-1989 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014.

Ryerson, Albert Winslow. The Ryerson Genealogy. Chicago, 1916.