| Notes |
- . Richard Lawrence's New Brunswick Land Petitions indicate he was single March 1786 at Queensborough & married by August 1789 on the Miramichi. They could have been married by her father, a Justice of the Peace for Miramichi, or perhaps by an Anglican Minister in transit on the Miramichi, who had baptized a Willson child [Jonathan Willson 1783 & John Willson.III, born 1791?]
Further Research: However, also retained for further search: St. Andrews Church, Long Island. 1780 Oct 5, Married, Lawrence Mary & Lawrence, Richard. Vol. xxx, Page 56. This seems this would be too early for this Mary Willson.
. UC Land Petition 63, L Bundle 4 c 1808 p241
York, daughter of John Willson, [MARY WILLSON,] Richard Lawrence.
. To His Honor Peter Russell, Esq., president of the Government of Upper Canada etcetcetc. In Council:
The Petition of Richard Lawrence of the Township of York. Humbly shows That your Petitioner is a Loyalist & came from Nova Scotia about 3 years ago, [1794] that he is married to Mary, the daughter of John Willson, Esq. of Kings Mills on the Humber, who is also a Loyalist. That your Petitioner's wife having never received any Land, your Petitioner prays your Honor would be pleased to grant him 200 Acres in right of his said confer & is in duty bound your Petitioner will ever pray.
Richard Lawrence, York, 22 June, 1797.
Envelope: Ordered 200 Acres to wife of Petitioner as DUE, 1778 Dec 24. [Daughter of an Empire Loyalist.]
Ontario Land Registry Abstract Vaughan Book 185,
Lot 1, Con 3, Vaughan Book 185, p4
. 1802 May 17, Patent, Crown, to Mary Lawrence, All 200 A
. 1821 Feb 21, B&S, Richard Lawrence et ux, to John Guthrie, £100, All.
Note1: As of 2018 this land is now 1900 Steeles Ave. West, Fairbanks Lumber Co., Concord, Vaughan Twp., York Co., Ontario. As of 2018 this land is now 1900 Steeles Ave. West, Fairbanks Lumber Co., Concord, Vaughan Twp., York Co., Ontario. -PJA
Note2: Husband Richd. Lawrence had other land at Lot 1 Con 4, also the adjacent, Lot 25 across on Yonge St in York Township. In others words, all located on Steeles Avenue: First East at Yonge & Steeles to Dufferin St.]
. 1801 Children's schoolhouse, Condition of Yonge Street:
Lot No. 25 west & east complied with, Lot 25 East Side of Yonge Street; nothing done to the street & a schoolhouse erected in the centre of the street. This is the end of the Township of York.
Ref: Report to Surveyor-General D W Smith on the condition of Yonge Street in 1801, by John Stegmann, formerly a Hessian officer.
. On page 427 of Scadding's memoirs, he tells us that Elisha Pease taught in this early schoolhouse.
XReference: E. Pease was a witness of the WILL of John Willson, Jur. in 1818 & also John Johnston, 1852.
Note3: The schoolhouse was built in the road allowance in front of the Lawrence's property so the children could find it & not getting lost in the woods. Just a few lots away, Jacob Cummer tells us a black bear was digging up his garden. - PJ Ahlberg.
. DAUGHTER & WIFE of a TAVERN KEEPER:
Mary Willson Lawrence & her children, had much experience at Taverkeeping. Husband Richard Lawrence held a UC licensed tavern located on Yonge Street north. She & her friend, as noted below, Mary Thompson visited Miss Elizabeth Russel when Thompson was employed by the sister of THE most prominent & powerful man in Upper Canada. From extracted stories from Ely Playter's Journal we may see what life was like a woman tavenkeeper in early Upper Canada:
. 1806 Jan 11 - Thinking it was a tavern, Ely Playter & a companion mistakenly stopped & stayed over night at Mr. Miller's house. Implicit in the mistake at Millers & throughout his journal, is a parallel understanding that household life intersected with public life in taverns.
. 1802 May 2 & Sept 29 - Mary Thomson*, Playter's journal's Miss T - also lived at his house. She was the daughter of a substantial farm family from Scarborough Township. Her father, Archibald, was a master stonemason & a Justice of the peace from 1806. Nothing about her presentation in the journal suggests less than respectable young womanhood. It is difficult to account for her presence in the tavern rather than on her family's farm. [Scaboro Museum, 2016]. Certainly not a servant in the house, she socialized within the same circles as the tavern-keeper & came & went as she pleased.
Playter mentioned her almost exclusively in the parlour usually in the context of polite sociability, but once he noted, I seated myself by the Parlour fire & finished my letters to Mr & Mrs Rogers, it was one o'clock in the morning before I retired to bed. Miss T sat at her work till I had finished writing. This brief reference & others, imply Mary Thompson may have worked in the textile trade from Playter's tavern & continued so working after marrying John Scarlett of the Humber. Tavern-keepers placed tea tables in their parlours. Nor did anything about the emphatically public nature of their homes work to exclude the women of tavern-keeping households from local networks of female friendship & association:
The Tavernkeepers' daughters, Player saw Miss Beman, the Miss Jarvises, & Miss Robinson on their way home as they had been visiting & he gave my Sister's Compliments to her as they had requested in their letter" In their taverns these women crafted a female space for sociability, into which they also welcomed men.
Ref: Women, Men, & Taverns in Tavern-Keeper Ely Playter's Journal, by Julia Roberts, Guelph.
Note4: Mary Thomson's husband-to-be, John Scarlett was granted in 1817 Apr 2, Lot 19, south side of Richmond, that is across the street from husband Richard Lawrence. Ref: Town of York Abstracts, p263.
. 1837 - Toronto & Home District:
. 1799 - Population 224; 1800 - Population 1127. 1818 - Population 8,459.
Date & place of burial of Mary Willson Lawrence is unknown. Last known whereabouts of Mary Lawrence was noted in her daughter Mary Ann Lawrence's UC Marriage Bond of 10 August 1819, where permission to marry was obtained at Long Point in southern Ontario. Rebecca Lawrence says her father died when she was very young & she was reared by an older sister, implying perhaps that Mary Willson was dead between 1821 & 1831 when her husband died & thus making Rebecca about 16 years of age - not so 'very young'.
Richard Lawrence was an inn keeper in the Long Pointe to Harwich, Ontario, until his death about another 1 years later, about 1831.
A separate Willson Family Tree may be found at Ontario Ancestor; & also Rootsweb.com: John Willson of New Jersey & the Kings' Mill, Ontario. - - - [1, 2]
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Est 1770 - Est 21 Feb 1821 ±