Elizabeth Jackson married William Rutherford Senior on May 30, 1856, and together they founded a large and socially active family. Although the Rutherford roots are quite well documented, I've been able to find out very little about Elizabeth Jackson and where she came from. The only pieces of information I have found before this week were on their marriage register, which was witnessed by a Thomas Jackson (although the relationship was not stated) and her recently found obituary, which stated that she was born in Biggar, Scotland, and came to Canada as a child with her parents. I've done an unsuccessful search for Elizabeth in the 1851 census, and indeed I've been unable to find any Jackson family in that census which lived in Montreal but came from Scotland. Now I have one more piece of information to add to the hope of tracking down Elizabeth's family; this week I tracked down a copy of the Montreal Gazette which had a short wedding announcement for the couple.
"In this city on the 30th ultimo, Mr. William Rutherford, to Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Mr. Thomas Jackson, all of Montreal." (June 2, 1856, p. 2).
This is great! Now I can confirm that the Thomas Jackson at Elizabeth and William's wedding was indeed her father and not a brother or cousin. It also appears that Elizabeth had younger siblings, probably sisters. Her mother is not mentioned, but knowing the name of her father will definitely help find her birth family. I wonder if he was in the construction trade?
Dear Claire,
ReplyDeleteI have discovered with interest your blog, and this evening have spent a couple of hours with it. I am the historian for the Atwater Library (Mechanics Institute), and so have delved into the Bulmer/Rutherford/Ladd connections quite a bit, and am planning, soon I hope, to do an article on the extensive and impressive contributions made by the extended family to the organization. I am also a friend of Janet Rutherford White. Specifically, I am interested in someone in MIM records as Charles P. Ladd, whom I suspect may really be Calvin P. Ladd..would you have any knowledge of this? Susan McGuire
Hello Susan, thanks for reading! All I can tell you is that there is no Charles P. Ladd in our family tree. None of Calvin's relatives (children or otherwise) have that name, and I don't know how likely it is that an unrelated Ladd with the same first initials would be a member of the same organization.
ReplyDeleteI find the connections between the families interesting as well. As you probably know, Calvin Ladd and his wife Mary (Polly) Harmon's daughter Elizabeth Ladd married John Bulmer, Henry's younger brother, and in turn John and Elizabeth's daughter Ida Bulmer married William Rutherford Jr. So that makes three generations of involvement in the Mechanic's institute for the Bulmer/Rutherford/Ladd clan, not even taking into account William Rutherford Sr.
Calvin's life is quite interesting in and of itself. You may know that his father-in-law Daniel Williams Harmon wrote a fur trade journal which is historically significant and still in print today. Harmon has an entry in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography which is worth a look. My understanding is that Calvin eventually lost his Montreal business to a fire and moved to the United States, where he remarried, had one more daughter, and died in 1889 in Dorchester.
I'd be very interested to see your article when it's written. I'm wondering if by any chance you have a picture of Calvin Ladd among your records? I've never been able to find a picture of him.