The Rockwood Cairn (Part 2)

Map of Eramosa Township from the 1877
Historical Atlas of the County of Wellington

Murder in Eramosa: The Willoughby Family           

The death of a young mother was tragic but not uncommon in Canada during the 19th century. When Sarah Willoughby of Eramosa Township died on August 1, 1857, her husband Charles was left as the sole caregiver for their five young children.

Like many widowers in similar situations, Charles resolved to find a new mother for his children. Four months after Sarah's death Charles married 39-year-old Margaret Moore from County Donegal, Ireland. Fourteen years later, on February 3, 1871, he murdered her.

Charles, the son of John and Sarah Willoughby, was born about 1821 in Kilcommon, Wicklow, Ireland. Charles married Sarah Langrill, daughter of William Langrill at Kilcommon in 1849. Later that year they emigrated to Canada, accompanied by Charles's younger brother Thomas. Charles settled in Eramosa Township in Wellington County east of Guelph. The 1852 Agricultural Census shows Charles farming 100 acres at Lot 6 Concession 6, of which only 10 acres were cleared. Charles rented at first but was able to purchase the property in the fall of 1858.

Charles and Sarah's children were all born in Canada. Their oldest, William, was born soon after their arrival. Their next child, John, was born early in 1852, followed by Sarah in 1853, Mary in 1855, and Elizabeth in 1857.

Charles and Margaret had two children: Charles, born in 1858, and John James, born in 1861 and named after his step-brother John who had died a year previously. Charles and his step-sister Elizabeth were baptised at Norfolk Street Methodist in Guelph on September 10, 1858.

A detailed account of Margaret’s murder appeared in the Guelph Mercury, the St Catharines Constitutional and several other newspapers. Apparently, Charles woke up thirsty and demanded that Margaret get him a drink of water. When she refused he grabbed an axe and struck her in the face, killing her instantly. When his daughters Sarah and Mary went to investigate, Charles barricaded them in their bedroom, and then tried to killed himself with the axe. When that failed he went out to the barn and attempted to hang himself. Meanwhile, Sarah and Mary escaped and summoned help. Charles was arrested and transported to the Guelph jail to await trial.

The readers of the St Catharines Constitutional were not spared some of the more gruesome details:

...the scene presented was one of the most sickening character. Close to the head of the poor woman were lying pools of congealed blood which had flowed from the wound and her mouth. Part of the frontal bone, the cheek bone, and the upper part of the jaw bone were smashed in, the eye was quite black from the effect of the blow, and the abrasion showed that the wound had been inflicted with a blunt instrument.

Charles was described by his neighbours as “grasping, mean, selfish, passionate, and quarrelsome,” to which the Constitutional commented:

...even to a passionate man, as he is, the mere refusal to get him a drink of water does not afford the shadow of a provocation for committing such an awful crime.

Charles Willoughby’s trial took place in Guelph on March 22, 1871. At his trial it became clear that he suffered from serious mental health issues. Charles was apparently prone to fits of rage and was frequently delusional. He blamed Margaret— “a careworn heart broken woman”—for the death of his son John and accused her of trying to poison him.

One of the key witnesses was Dr. Joseph Workman, superintendent of the Asylum for the Insane in Toronto, and the leading mental health expert in Canada. Based on Dr. Workman’s testimony the jury found Charles not guilty on the grounds of insanity, and Charles was committed to the Asylum.

Margaret was buried at the Erin Mills Cemetery. Her death registration notes that she was "murdered by her husband."

Charles died in Toronto at the Asylum for the Insane on January 29, 1879.

Sarah and her son John would have been buried at St. John's Anglican as the Willoughby property was located about one kilometer to the northeast of Rockwood.

Ann Trownsell (1856–1862)

This hard to read gravestone commemorates Ann Trownsell, the six-year-old daughter of Richard Trownsell (1836–?) and Mary McNamana (1835-1910). While Richard and Mary were born in Ireland, the 1861 Census indicates that Ann and her three-year-old sister Lucy were born in Canada.

Richard and Mary had at least five more children: Charles (1862–1930), William (1866–1937), Richard (1869–1944), Thomas (1869–1869), and Maria (1871–1932). Richard and Thomas were twins.

In 1868, the family emigrated to the United States and settled in Fayette in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Although Fayette was the site of an industrial complex that produced pig iron, it appears that Richard only worked for the Jackson Iron Company for a short time before he began farming in the area. When smelting at Fayette ceased in the early 1890s and the community became a ghost town, Richard purchased a farm in nearby Garden.

Mary Ann Wilkinson née Dyer (1810-1869) 

Mary Ann Dyer was born about 1810 in County Laois, Ireland and married Edward Wilkinson (1799-1880) about 1843. They had at least six children. All but the youngest were born in Ireland which indicates that the family emigrated to Canada about 1849.

All six children were living with their widowed father in Eramosa in 1871. At the time of his death in March 1880, Edward was a resident of the Wellington County House of Industry and Refuge, having been admitted shortly before his death. Edward’s daughter Jane (1848–1945) married at St John’s Anglican in Rockwood in 1871 which suggests that her mother had been buried there. As Edward was not buried at the House of Industry Cemetery he may also have been buried at St John's Anglican.

Children of Benjamin Kerr and Susan Collier

John, Margaret and William were the children of Benjamin Kerr (1828–1884) and Susan Collier (1828–1915). In 1851, Benjamin purchased the east half on Lot 19 Concession 1 in Erin Township, just east of the border with Eramosa Township. The location of the property would suggest that the burials of his three children occurred at Ascension Anglican.

Both Benjamin and Susan were born in Ireland, however, they married after they had come to Canada. Susan, the daughter of Robert Collier (1797–?) and Margaret (1807–?), was living with her family in Garafraxa Township at the time of the 1852 Census. As Susan's two youngest siblings were born in Canada, her family would have emigrated about 1844 just prior to the Irish Potato Famine.

Benjamin and Susan had at least seven children. Susan outlived Benjamin by many years. She was a patient at the Hamilton Asylum for the Insane in 1901, 1911 and at the time of her death. Benjamin and Sarah are both buried at Everton Cemetery along with their daughter Margaret Ann (1871–1899).

James Odgan Gates (1871-1871)

His name is misspelled on his gravestone but James Ogden Gates, the son of James Gates (1832–?) and Rosanna O’Brian (1840–?), was born on January 12, 1871, and died eleven months later on December 19, 1871.

James was the grandson of one of two brothers who emigrated from Connecticut to Upper Canada before the war of 1812. Olmstead Gates (1779–1856) and James Gates (1782–1857) settled in Prescott County on the Ottawa River. James married Mary Willard (1797–1880) and had nine children, including their youngest son, also called James.

The 1852 Census shows James O Gates, aged 19, living with his parents and a sister in Caledonia Township, Prescott County. It is tempting to assume that the “O” was for Ogden. To confuse matters, James had a cousin named James Ogden Gates (1812-1875), the son of his uncle Olmstead.

James married Rosanna O’Brian about 1857 and had moved west to Erin Township in Wellington County before 1861. In the 1867 Irwin & Burnham Directory, James is listed as a householder at Concession 3 Lot 14 in neighbouring Eramosa Township.

In addition to James Ogden, James and Rosanna had four daughters. The youngest, Melissa, also known as Millie, was born in 1874.

When the family was enumerated in April 1871, they were living in Flamborough Township north of Hamilton. They returned to Eramosa before the end of the year but were living in Erin Township when Melissa was born.

James’s and Rosanna’s fates are uncertain as their death registrations have not been found. The 1881 Census show James Gates in Plantagenet South Township, Prescott with the family of his sister Maria. The enumerator recorded James as married but Rosanna is not with him.

Two of James and Rosanna’s daughters, Annie (1862–1945) and Theresa (1865–?) married in Toronto in the 1880s. In 1881, 1891 and 1901, their daughter Melissa was living in Plantagenet South Township in Prescott County as the adopted child of Henry Vogan (1824–?) and Mary McNally (1824-1900). Melissa died in Toronto in 1910.

Charles Edward Knowles (1874-1874)

Charles Edward Knowles was one of six children of James Whitaker Knowles and Margaret Hickey. His father, James Whitaker Knowles, was a sadler who at the time of his death in 1923 had lived in the village of Rockwood for 63 years. James, the son of George Knowles (1811-1867) and Hannah Staniforth (1811–1871), was born in Dewsbury, Yorkshire, England in 1841. James left his parents behind in England when he emigrated to Canada in 1858. He married Margaret about 1863 and their first child, George Staniforth Hickey, was born a year later. Charles was their fifth child.

Charles was born on April 13, 1874 and died three months later on July 30, 1874. He was buried at St John’s Anglican in Rockwood. A year later James and Margaret had another son who they also named Charles Edward.

Margaret died in 1906 at the age of 69. Both Margaret and James are buried at the Rockwood Cemetery as are three of their other children.

Mary Ann Stevenson (1828-1866) and Children

Mary Ann Peavoy, the oldest daughter of George Peavoy (1810–1883) and Eliza Jestin (1808–1879), was born in Upper Canada in 1836. Her father was born in Mountrath, County Laois, Ireland but all of his thirteen children were born in Wellington County.

Mary Ann’s husband, Samuel Stevenson, was born in Ireland about 1831 and farmed the west half of Concession 7 Lot 26 in Eramosa. Three of their children died young and are commemorated on Mary’s gravestone: James (1855-1857), Elizabeth (? –1857) and George E. (1860-1865). A fourth child, Margaret, was born in 1863. Samuel was living with Margaret and his son-in-law, John Johnston, in 1891. Samuel died in 1893. Samuel is consistently recorded as Methodist in census data, and given the location of his farm, his wife and children may have been buried at the Copeland Methodist Cemetery.

Daniel DAY (1810–1883) and Family

Daniel Day, the son of Daniel Day (1780–1835) and Elizabeth Watson (1784-1867), was born in Withernwick, Yorkshire on August 19, 1810, and was baptised there on 7 Oct 1810. In 1831 he emigrated with his parents to Guelph in Upper Canada. Daniel married Matilda Bowes about 1840, and their oldest child, Mary, was born on November 17, 1841. Daniel and Matilda had at least five children including Robert who was born in 1847. By 1851 Daniel had moved to Eramosa Township where he farmed Concession 3 Lot 20. Matilda died on February 25, 1872 at the age of 61 and was buried at McCormick Cemetery in Eramosa Township.

Robert married Harriet Mary Croft, daughter of William and Anna Croft at Eramosa on November 19, 1872. Robert and Harriet had three children: Annie Evelina (1874–1950), William Richard (1875– ?) and John Robert (1878– ?). Robert died in 1879. Harriet continued to live in Eramosa with her children until her death on December 17, 1886.

After Robert’s death, Daniel moved to Amabil Township in Bruce County to live with his daughter Mary’s family. Daniel died in Amabil in June 1883 but was buried in Eramosa.

Daniel, Robert and Harriet were likely interred at Ascension Anglican given the churchyard’s proximity to the Day property.

Sources:

Gazetteer and Directory of the County of Wellington, 1867. Irwin & Burnham, 1867.

Day, Frank. Here and There in Eramosa. Self-published, 1953.

Thorning, Stephen. “Insanity Verdict in 1871 Eramosa Homicide Case.” Wellington Advertiser, January 18, 2002. Reprinted January 6, 2022.

“Wife Murder at Rockwood” St. Catharines Constitutional, Feburary 9, 1871.

Gazetteer and Directory of the County of Wellington, for 1871-2. A. O. Loomis & Co., 1871.