George Sutton was fifteen and Samuel, George’s brother, after whom Samuel Edward was named, was fourteen when their mother died. The two boys remained close all their lives. Before his fifteenth birthday, George Sutton suffered some sort of injury while working on the farm and for the rest of his life had a hole right through his leg. His grandniece, Margaret Markert, the granddaughter of Samuel and Caroline Voss Weir, and the daughter of Helen Irene, remembers seeing it when she was a small child.
Robert Weir remarried shortly after Martha’s death, but it was not a happy choice for him nor for his children. The second wife, recorded only by her surname Neilson, deserted the household and it can be imagined that, in the years when George Sutton and Samuel were adolescents, the home was anything but a joyous, happy place. George’s brothers, as far as is known, all did well in the world, especially Samuel, and despite their Aunt Jane’s mistake, the surviving sisters married well. It is interesting to note that all the children left home as soon as it was practical.
JANE WEIR AND DAVID CHAMBERS, M. –
Robert Weir lent a considerable sum of money to David Chambers, his sister Jane’s husband, mortgaging the Weir farm to do so. Chambers was not particularly well liked in the community. An Englishman, he was known as an accountant and had worked in San Salvador, sometimes as a teacher. It was rumoured by some that he was a remittance man. Whatever his scheme was for making himself and others rich, his latest venture came to nothing and he was sued for embezzlement. Unable to repay Robert the money he had borrowed, his default led to the foreclosure of the original Weir land grant. Fortunately, Robert was able to set himself up on another property where he specialized in dairy farming. Thus Samuel Edward’s grandfather, a Methodist minister and a dairy farmer, became a milkman, delivering milk to homes in what had grown to be the town of London.
As would be expected, family relationships were strained by Chambers’ actions. Numerous letters written between the brothers and sisters and their children reveal that Aunt Jane Chambers was thought of as a rather embittered, elderly, childless widow after Chambers’ death. Her nieces and nephews found her trying, but if she had thought that Chambers had married her solely in order to gain control of money from Robert’s generosity as well as her own legacy of two hundred dollars from the will of her father, her bitterness is understandable.
OTHER DAUGHTERS OF ARCHIBALD AND MARY CURRIE WEIR
Other children included Mary Ann (1825) who married John Stacey and lived in London Township. Jane, of the unfortunate marriage, born in 1827, was followed by two more daughters. Sarah (1830) married James Grant, the founder of the town of Granton, Ontario. Martha (1832) married twice, first to Squire Corless and subsequently to Bernard Stanley, seems to have lived her entire life in London Township. The last child of Archibald and Mary Currie Weir, a daughter, Elizabeth (1837) married a school teacher, James Harrison. She had been willed one hundred dollars by her father. The couple lived in St. Mary’s, had several children and were known far and wide for their hospitality. In their parlour, an organ held pride of place and frequently relatives and friends were drawn to the evenings of music and singing.
THE YOUNGER SONS OF ARCHIBALD AND MARY CURRIE WEIR
Then there was Samuel Weir, the eighth child of Archibald and Mary, who married Hannah O’Brien. The couple had four children, two girls and two boys both of whom seem to have died without issue. Samuel was left five shillings in his father’s will.
John, the last son, born in 1835, married Anne Jane McSully of Strathroy. The couple had three daughters, then a son, about whom nothing is known other than their names: Mary Jane, Martha Ann, Margaret Elizabeth and George. Their fifth child, Robert Currie, was born in 1877 and married Josephine Pearl Johnstone on June 12, 1912. Known as Bert, he and Josephine Pearl had two children: Mary Josephine (1914) who married Duncan Alexander Mackay and John Robert, who married Vera Eugenie Eustace. Two children were born to John and Vera: Barbara Joan who married William George Stiles and Robert Stuart, who married Karen Clothilde Sass.
Robert Currie Weir became a well known physician, practising in Auburn, Ontario. On the fiftieth anniversary of his practice, he was given a celebration by the entire community and a great many of the children he had brought into the world over the course of half a century came to wish him well. John Robert, Samuel Edward’s second cousin, served in the Royal Canadian Air Force in World War II. Despite the disparity in age, the two became close friends and remained so. John’s wife, Vera, acted as an ‘honorary’ secretary to Samuel Edward after his retirement. When this work became an almost full time occupation for her, the situation was brought to his attention, and Samuel Edward attended to his oversight in her favour.
Samuel Weir, Samuel Edward’s namesake, born 1860.
So it is that Archibald and Mary Currie Weir, blown off course on their voyage to the New World, inadvertently laid the foundations of a pioneering dynasty from Upper Canada, ultimately to the entire country as well as in the United States, a thoroughly impressive legacy of leaders, founders and pioneering farmers from coast to coast in North America.
2 THE BAWTENHEIMER FAMILY
THE MATERNAL SIDE OF SAMUEL EDWARD’S FAMILY WERE THE Badenheimers. It was from a small village in Baden in the German Palatinate that four young men, probably brothers, left their home to try their luck in the New World at regular two year intervals. Of one brother, there is no trace of his having landed. He may have been under the age of sixteen and hence too young to take the oath of allegiance to the King of England upon arrival, or his ship may have been lost at sea. The two elder brothers, Johann Christian and Johann Wilhem Badenheimer, arrived in September of 1749 and September of 1751 respectively, aboard the brig, Two Brothers, in two separate crossings out of Rotterdam bound for Philadelphia. Two years later, the third brother, Johann Peter Badenheimer, arrived in Philadelphia in September of 1753 aboard the snow Rowand. A snow is defined as a sailing vessel rigged in manner similar to a brig but with a trysail mast just abaft the mainmast and considerably smaller than a brig, more manoeuvreable and sometimes used in warfare. Each of the brothers, upon arrival, disembarked in Philadelphia and had to take an oath of allegiance to the British Crown as well as an oath of abjuration and fidelity to William Penn and the proprietors of Pennsylvania. The two elder brothers appear to have left Pennsylvania subsequently and to have settled in North Carolina. Johann Peter travelled north to New Jersey.
That each son left the Palatinate as soon as he approached sixteen years of age would indicate that the land around Baden, known for the quality of its vineyards and its wine, where the family had farmed for generations, was now of insufficient harvest potential to support five sons for division among them. The first born, as was the custom, remained at home.
Political unrest in Europe also may have contributed to the departure of the younger four. The War of the Austrian Succession broke out in 1740 when Johann Peter was three years of age. Charles VI, the last Holy Roman Emperor died in 1740 and left no male heirs. He had exacted promises of fealty to his daughter and heiress, Maria Theresa, from his various vassals, kings and electors. The emperor was no sooner entombed than Maria Theresa, who had succeeded to the thrones of Austria, Bohemia and Hungary, was faced with Frederick II, the Great, King of Prussia, marching into Austria. Charles Albert, Elector of Bavaria, Philip V of Spain and August III, King of Poland and Elector of Saxony, also made their claims to the Palatinate and the war was on. Maria Theresa was supported by Hungary, Britain and the Netherlands. Bavaria, France, Poland, Sardinia, Saxony and Spain supported Frederick and the other insurgents. For five years battles and skirmishes made the farmers’ lives difficult and precarious, although the Badenheimers’ produce no doubt was in high demand. At last the Treaty-of-Aix-la-Chapelle was signed in 1748, but it was an uneasy peace. In 1756 the war known as The Seven Years War broke out, three years after Johann Peter had left his home. He was nineteen years of age and must have been relieved