Crossing the Atlantic – My WICKSON Tree

Sylvester Campbell-Helen Mason

(The Household in Aberdeen)

The 1841 census in Scotland for the civil parish of Udny, Aberdeenshire, Tillyeve (parish number 249) identifies the members in the family of Sylvester Campbell (1784-1844) and Helen Mason (1789-1877). Listed are Silvester Campbell (55), Helen Campbell (56), Silvester Campbell (22), William Campbell (20), Isabel Campbell (16), Helen Campbell (15), Adam C. Campbell (14), Margaret Campbell (12), George Campbell (9) and David Campbell (5). Also listed are farm hands and servants George Bremar (20), Grase Moir (15), William Thom (15) and James Gibson (14). Missing in this census record are the two oldest children, Jean Campbell (26) and Alexander Campbell (24). It was not known as reserch got under way if this was due to the fact that one or both of the oldest children were independent and living away from home or if a tragedy had struck and either or both were deceased. There is a suggestion in one document from the Campbell-Isaac Genealogy Project that Alexander Campbell "was to have married Ann Isaac", suggesting, perhaps, that they were betrothed and Alexander or Ann died before they were married. Further research revealed that this was just speculation. Three years later, on March 6, 1844, Sylvester Campbell (1784-1844) dies; Helen Mason will live until January 29, 1877. The farming operation passes to his son, Sylvester Campbell (1817-1891) and his wife, Isabella Milne (1821-1883). By the 1851 census, Sylvester Campbell (1817-1891) and Isabella Milne (1821-1883) are living at Kinnellar, Aberdeenshire with three children, Helen (3), William (1) and Isabella (1 month) together with Sylvester's younger brother, George Campbell (1831-1902) aged nineteen and five servants, one of whom is Sarah Grubb (1832-1901) aged nineteen. Four years later, George Campbell (1831-1902) marries Sarah Grubb (1832-1901) on September 28, 1855 in Scotland. In the decade between 1841 and 1851 several members of this Campbell family have made their way together with other Scottish immigrants from the Aberdeenshire area, with surnames like Isaac, Kennedy, Skinner, Carruthers, Mason and McKenzie, to Northumberland County, Ontario, Canada to start their own farming operations and to develop their own families. Either prior to or at the time of the death of Sylvester Campbell (1784-1844) in 1844, his daughters Isabel Campbell, who marries George Isaac, and Helen Campbell, who marries William Isaac, his son Adam Corbet Campbell (1826-1868), who marries Isabella Isaac in Canada, and, I believe, his son William Campbell (1819-1897), travel to Ontario, Canada to start a new life. The Campbell-Isaac Genealogy Project suggests that George and William Isaac, their two parents, William and Margery Isaac, their wives, Helen and Isabella Campbell, Adam Corbet Campbell and several other family members and servants "chartered a ship" and traveled to Canada at the same time. No passenger lists have so far been discovered to clarify the details of the Atlantic crossing. On the 1901 Census of Canada, Isabella (Campbell) Isaac, perhaps the only surviving member of this original party, states her year of immigration to Canada as 1842. It is my belief that William Campbell (1819-1897) emigrated to Canada at or about this same time. Documents in the Campbell-Isaac Genealogy Project suggest that the Campbell-Isaac party arrived at the town of Scotland, near Simcoe in Norfolk County about 1842. For some reason, these immigrants then traveled to Northumberland County within a very few years and put down their permanent roots there. George Campbell and Sarah Grubb join the rest of their family in Northumberland County a few years later. The only reference discovered so far to a sojourn in Norfolk County for this group are the references in the Campbell-Isaac Genealogy Project. However, independent of any reference in the Campbell-Isaac Genealogy Project, William Campbell (1819-1897) is noted as marrying Sarah Ann Havens (1825-1854) in the parish register for Woodhouse Parish, Norfolk County, near Simcoe and Scotland, Ontario in 1845. Then, like the members of the Campbell-Isaac party, William Campbell and Sarah Ann (Havens) Campbell move to Northumberland County to take up residence in Hamilton Township, a few miles from the main body of the Campbell-Isaac party, who settle across the township line in adjoining Haldimand Township. Fragmentary records from the Congregational Church at Cold Springs, Hamilton Township, Northumberland County suggest that Willliam Campbell and his relatively new bride, Sarah Ann (Havens) Campbell arrive in Hamilton Township and join the newly-formed Congregationalist Church at Cold Springs, headed by Reverend William Hayden from 1840 to 1865, in the 1845-1846 reporting year of the church. William Campbell becomes a Deacon (1845) and Secretary within the church organization and Sarah Ann (Havens) Campbell, his wife of only a few months, probably joins the choir. Family "lore", related in 2010 by Sylvester Campbell to Wayne Wickson, suggests that William Campbell and Sarah Ann (Havens) Campbell were personal friends of William Hayden and his family, perhaps leading to the naming of William and Sarah Ann's first son as William Hayden Campbell, the William H. Campbell who shows up in the 1851/1852 census record and the William Hayden Campbell whose full name is noted in the birth registration of his (assumed) first son, Frederick Havens Campbell in 1874. William Campbell, through his marriage to Sarah Ann Havens, was connected to two established Loyalist families in Norfolk County - the Havens and the Gilberts. For him to leave Norfolk County and travel the distance to Northumberland County was a very significant decision in the 1840's. There must have been compelling reasons to believe that he could "do better" in Northumberland County. The presence of several members of his own family and a significant number of familiar Aberdeen Scotsmen might have provided the incentive for that momentous move out of Norfolk County to Northumberland County. By the census of 1851/1852 William Campbell and Sarah Ann Havens, Adam Corbet Campbell and Isabella Isaac, Isabel Campbell and George Isaac, Helen Campbell and William Isaac and the other members of their party are settled in Northumberland County, Ontario, Canada. George Campbell and Sarah Grubb will follow them within a few years, as will some of the children of Sylvester Campbell (William's older brother) and his wife, Isabella Milne. Within a decade of Sylvester's death in 1844, there may be more of Sylvester Campbell and Helen Mason's children and grandchildren living in close proximity in Northumberland County, Ontario, Canada than remain in Scotland.

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