I think I have made a bit of a breakthrough on this one.
Silas' second wife Charlotte Priscilla Borland has been a bit of a mystery. We know from the 1879 marriage in Buffalo that she was born in England circa 1853, but I've not been able to find anything about her previous life.
It just occurred to me that she could have been married before, so I looked for a Charlotte Priscilla marrying a Mr Borland before 1879. Sure enough there was a Charlotte P Gaskin who married John Borland in Wentworth Ontario ( where Silas lived before migrating to Buffalo) on 29 January 1873. Her parents were Joseph and Ellen Gaskin.
There was a Charlotte Priscilla Gaskin born in Derby (Silas was from Derby !) in 1853, father Joseph. It all seems to hang together.
