Barry, that is a fantastic find!
I have just received a copy of a cutting from the Cleveland Plain Dealer announcing the death of Augustus J Enever [which contains assertions including that ...] 2. He married a direct descendant of Sir John Burgoyne (who was (in)famous for his surrender of New York at Saratoga in 1777)
... do we know if the link to Sir John Burgoyne is proved?
On Claim 2 -- to which you return in your closing para -- I think that we can say "Rubbish!" with reasonable confidence. (I touched on this in the last part of my Reply 17, a bit down on p.2 of the old Northumberland thread, plus in the first couple of paras of Reply 35 on the following page.) Gentleman Johnny's line is pretty well established, and there seems to be no room for any overlap. The sapper-field marshall's own son went into the RN and was the unfortunate captain of the experimental turret-ship HMS Captain (unstable and lost with nearly all hands in a storm).
I rather think that the Saratoga myth may have circulated in the Power family too. With the surname Burgoyne the temptations are all too obvious . . .
You are best placed to opine on Claim 1 -- and your website seems pretty conclusive about it.
Claim 3 could contain a grain of truth, to the extent that it does match Cleo's port of embarkation for North America. It would be good if we could find some Scottish refs. to their presence north of the border. Augustus does not appear to have sailed on the same vessel as Cleo (and her son by Bennett).
I would guess that Claim 4 about his accountancy job would be verifiable by too many readers of the obit to be a purely imaginary embellishment.
As to Claim 5 (Cleo being blinded in an accident), it is hard to know, in the absence of her being named in some press report at the time of the alleged accident. Maybe I missed it, but I do not recall seeing anything about her being blind in her US census entries.
The smelling salts story looks too bizarre to be entirely concocted, but who knows . . .
Does the article give us any clues as to the cause of death (husband and wife dying so nearly simultaneously)?
As you know, I entirely concur with the implications of your quote marks around the word
married. No record anywhere that I can see.
Rol