BURGOYNE Family of Plymouth (Ancestors of Cleopatra Cecilia Burgoyne, b. 1844)

[bennever]

Sorry guys, I'll drag this back to Cleo for a moment if I may.  Amazingly I have been sent 2 letters written by Samuel Bennett aka James Enever from 1911/2 in which he confirms the tram car accident and his mother's resulting blindness.  So not only was Samuel/James himself of very poor sight (and registered blind) but also his wife Josephine, who he met at the Cleveland Blind School, but late in life his mother also.

I've updated the family history page  http://www.ennever.com/histories/history15093.php if of interest.  Kind rgds

Barry

[Rol]

Sorry guys, I'll drag this back to Cleo for a moment if I may.  Amazingly I have been sent 2 letters written by Samuel Bennett aka James Enever from 1911/2 ...

Barry,  you are an absolute magician in locating splendid new primary source material!  While this thread is of course intended as an ongoing information exchange about all members of the Plymouth Burgoyne clan,  there is no doubt that Cleo has prescriptive priority rights as leading lady -- and so there can be no possible need to apologise for introducing new info about her as soon as it is discovered.

Your compendium about her and Augustus was already a great resource,  and the latest revisions make it even better.  The extracts that you have added from the two letters written by James Samuel Enever (né Samuel James Bennett) in 1911-12 constitute first-hand contemporary evidence from one of the leading players in this thread's central plot.  So I do not think the brief headlines which you have modestly posted give adequate weight to the importance of what you have discovered.

Accordingly I hope you will not mind my abstracting the material from the letters that you put up on you site,  and reproducing a slightly re-ordered version of it here for the benefit of the readers of this thread.  (I shall willingly amend or remove anything in what follows that you may tell me that you would prefer to be edited out.)

[In] a letter from James Enever, Cleopatra's son, to his cousin James Keen Enever dated 1911 in which James refers to Augustus as 'Father Gus' ... [he records that in about 1884 the] family had moved to Corstophine in Scotland and lived there for about a year.  Augustus met with a group of men who had 'the craze to come to the States' and 'just insisted that Gus accompany them', which he did leaving Cleo and James in Scotland.  The group of Scotsmen went to Florida while Gus stayed in New York ...

James ... wrote that after arriving in New York Augustus became interested in investing his money in a South Carolina publishing firm and was awarded the New York agency for its monthly magazine for so doing. All went well for about eighteen months until an earthquake hit South Carolina and destroyed the company's building and his money was lost.

After the collapse of the publishing business the family took in boarders and ... then Augustus was offered the position with The Equitable Life Assurance Co.  [James adds that] later ... his father had 'lost his position with the Equitable' ... , but without elaborating on the reasons.

[The 1911 letter continues:]  'Mother became entirely blind about two years ago. She went to Market one Saturday night and while boarding a Street Car, or Tram as the Johnny Bulls call them, she was thrown to the pavement and must have struck her head.  This caused blood vessels to burst behind the eye and subsequently she became blind.'

Cleopatra was badly affected by her blindness and her family feared for a while that she would take her own life but in time she settled to her fate and became more cheerful.
 
James, however, was very positive about himself [and his own blindness], telling his cousin:  'I have poor sight.  It is so poor that I cannot see what I am writing to you now ... And doctors here say that in time I shall enjoy the blessings of perfect darkness.  But ... this does not worry me much ... I don't see what in the world I should feel sad about.'

'In the year of 1905 ... I married one of the most charming girls of our school, who is entirely blind.' He describes her as 'a capable young woman and what an accomplished person she is. She can manage and does our home in a whole lot better way than 999 women can out of a thousand. I am just a little conceited over my selection of a wife.'

Rol

[Burg]

Hi Grant,   I am interested to know where Erwin, brother of Frederick is when the 1841 census was taken.   The only Erwin I have found is Erwin son of Frederick, also who and when did he marry and his children.   Did he stay in England or did he immigrate somewhere.

Burg

[dfowler]

Elizabeth Prowse b 1787 Christow . I have another puzzle instead of an answer for you. My Christow PR transcripts show 3 possible baptisms:
17 June 1787 Betty d(aur) James and Betty (ne Mortimore )Prowse (m 5 Jan 1779)
11 July 1790 Betty d(aur) James and Elizabeth Prowse
28 Nov 1791 Betty d(aur) Samuel and Mary (ne SMITH) Prowse (m 11 July 1784)

The first two seem to be the same parents but there is no Christow burial record for the first Betty bp 1787. James and Elizabeth appeared in Christow from elsewhere in 1779 and there was never any later crossover with my Prowse family as witnesses to marriages. I have used witnesses quite a lot to determine which Betty or Thomas etc was which.

The last Betty bp 1791 was my 4x gt gfs sister and she married John Matthews in Christow 18 April 1815. My family had been in Ashton, just over the Teign from Christow since at least 1720.

I had presumed that the 1787 Betty had died and been replaced by the 1790 Betty and that the latter had married Richard Caseley in Christow on 25 Feb 1816. But I now note that the Elizabeth Prowse who married RC was a soj(ourner).

Just to add to the conundrum there was a marriage between John Smith and Suzannah Mortimore  25 March 1785.

Re Jane Burgoyne m Josias Prowse. Jane bp c 1801 censuses vague possibly Kerwyn Cornwall. I do not think this was the Loddiswell marriage.

 
 

[Rol]

I am interested to know where Erwin, brother of Frederick is when the 1841 census was taken.   The only Erwin I have found is Erwin son of Frederick, also who and when did he marry and his children.   Did he stay in England or did he immigrate somewhere.

Burg,  what (if any) info do you have about the fate of Erwin Burgoyne,  son of Frederick and Elizabeth (and elder brother of your Frederick William)?

I am wondering whether you are aware of him having joined the Royal Navy.  You have probably long since spotted this,  but Anc***ry.com have filmed the RN medal rolls for the Crimean campaign and those record an Erwin Burgoyne serving as an ordinary seaman in HMS St Jean d'Acre:  TNA ref. ADM 171/28 fo.63r.

He also received a campaign medal for service in the Baltic with the same vessel, 1854-55:  ADM 171/19 fo.102r.  That roll includes the comment that the medal was delivered to him later -- 13/8/57,  by which date he was apparently one of the ship's company of HMS Indus.

If this is not your man,  I suppose it could just as easily be the son of William and Grace Burgoyne (b.1835 per your Reply 52 above).  I would think that William and Dorothy's mystery Erwin b.1816 would have been a bit long in the tooth by the 1850s,  but absent more evidence I suppose he too should not be totally excluded as a possibility.  The difficulty of finding adult refs. to the latter,  plus the infant mortality rate of the time,  rather suggest that Plymouth burial registers before circa 1830 may be the place to catch him.

As I say,  the medal info is likely to be old news to you.  But always safest to check . . .


Rol

[Burg]

Hi Rol, Yes medals were not known to me but I did know that Erwin, Brother of Frederick William, was in the Navy and then in the Merchant Navy.   I did find him in the 1881 census living in Southampton with his wife Ann.   He had a son Charles, but as far as I know Ann was not his mother.   I think Erwin died in 1893 and Charles was born in 1864.

Burg

[Rol]

ERWIN BURGOYNE (b. 1816)

... The difficulty of finding adult refs. to [William and Dorothy's mystery Erwin b.1816],  plus the infant mortality rate of the time,  rather suggest that Plymouth burial registers before circa 1830 may be the place to catch him.

As a non-habitué -- let alone subscriber -- of the FindMyPast site,  I have just been having a browse through their indexes on the lookout for the name Erwin Burgoyne.

Previously unknown to me (though probably not to many other readers of this thread) was the fact that FindMyPast have a deal with the Devon FHS to host indexes to some of the society's PR transcripts.  One hit in particular struck me as being worth the price of a few pay-as-you-go credits:

                    Plymouth  Charles
   
                    Burgoyne, Erwin.   Buried 4 June 1818,  aged 2.

                    Data provider:  Devon Family History Society

In case anyone else wishes to pull up the details,  it may also be worth mentioning that FindMyPast's Parish Record Index has another hit showing for the burial of an Erwin Burgoyne at Plymouth -- in 1835,  at the age of 31.


Rol

[Burg]

Hi Rol,  I was looking at the FindMyPast website for parish buriels and did not find that entry.   That is one questioned answered but I now have another question.   Frederick was born 1814 according to the information Mrs Guthrigg sent us, b ut George was born 1814 and so was Sara Hardy.   Were they triplets, or were George and Sarah twins and Frederick born either before or after.   I was looking for Frederick's birth or baptism but so far no success.

Burg

[Rol]

Grant,  ... I am glad you have posted up the details of John Burgoyne's 1873 death cert.  Meant to do that near the start of this thread and never got round to it.  I tried for press reports of the inquest,  but failed to spot anything;  probably should have persisted longer.  My best guess was that the death was "sudden" and not immediately explicable -- i.e. he just dropped dead,  and the medical people wanted to make quite sure it was his heart.  Still,  mere speculation,  and it would be good to know more.  I have an old lookup request on the RootsChat Kent board for some one to try and find an Erith-area MI for him;  but no fish nibbled.  Maybe worth trying some resuscitation over there (in a non-Transylvanian sense).

Done.

(Link for use if needed/desired: here.)


Rol