THE MAST FAMILY

        The Mast family sprang from the village of Baiersbronn nestled in the Black Forest, in the state of Wuerttemberg, Germany. They can be traced in that area as far back as the 1500s.

 By the 1830s, if not before, conditions were so bad in Wuerttemberg that waves of immigrants took off for the New World. According to the Wuerttemberg Immigration Index, the Masts left their home in July of 1832,  traveling across France to Le Havre where they boarded a sailing vessel for the 6-week trip to Boston or perhaps  New York.

Other Baiersbronners were already in Puslinch, or would come in subsequent years, and it was to this place that the Masts came and took up land.

        The head of the family, Johannes Mast,  the son of Jacob Mast and Anna Maria Lutz of Baiersbronn,  was born there December 5, 1782 and was to die on his Puslinch farm , nearly a century later on October 17, 1871. Johannes had had bad luck with wives. His first, Regina Burkhardt, whom he married in 1805, bore a son Jacob but both mother and son died within two years. Johannes’ second marriage in October 1813  to Agatha Mast (a distant relation) produced three offspring, two of whom survived: Catherine, b. January 6, 1815 and Georg Friederich, b. in 1818. A second  Jacob died as an infant in 1826.

        Another prolific and well-known Baiersbronn family, the Haists, provided Johannes with his third wife and very possibly gave him the idea of heading for “Amerika”. This third and last wife, Regina Haist (April 19, 1800-February 20, 1883) was a daughter of Johann Daniel Haist (1755-1826) and Regina Kraft Haist (1768-1832). An  indomitable lady, the widow Haist  had undertaken to bring all her children to North America  and the plan included her daughter Regina and her new husband. 

      Unfortunately, the widow Regina died just before or on the journey. Her unmarried relative, Anamilee, took her place and lived a full life in Puslinch, dying at 94 in 1868. Much loved by her nephews and nieces, she is buried in Crown Cemetery. 

      Johannes and Regina had married on January 15, 1828 and arrived in Canada with sons Johann (January 29, 1829-1856) and Bernhard  (November 6, 1831-June 7, 1881) as well as with Johannes’ earlier family, Catherine and Friederich. (Catherine had  married her step-mother’s brother, Christian Haist and these two plus Christian’s brothers, Johannes and Matthias Peter, also settled in the township. To indicate the intricate family relationships further, Regina’s uncle, Franz Kraft and his wife, also traveled to Puslinch and became the first to settle Lot 30 Rear 7.- In addition, both of Franz Kraft’s two wives were Haists!).   

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      There is no record of Johannes Mast being in Puslinch before 1834 although he may have been or he may have been working elsewhere. The Assessment Roll places him, correctly or not, on Lot 28  Rear 7 in 1834. But by the next year, 1835, he was listed as the occupier of Lot 29 Rear 7  where the family remained  for the next 113 years. On this land were born Christian (1835-1854), Mary (1837-1911), Elizabeth “Betsy” (1842-1913),  Frank (1840-1923)  and William George (1844-1921).                           

        In 1848, Johannes and son John took the Oath of Allegiance, required of non-Britons, in order to own land legally. Johannes received the Crown Patent to Lot 29 in 1853 and proceeded to build a stone house. By 1861, the cash value of his farm was $3000. He grazed sheep and cattle, bred  pigs and used  horses in his work. The family, as others did,  made its own butter and cheese and preserved  its own beef and pork. A granddaughter, Genie Mast, William’s daughter,  wrote of one of of her father’s experiences: 

When the land was cleared for planting the stumps (mostly White Pine-later the picturesque stump fences) had to be burnt out. I have read. . . that Ague (uncontrollable shivering) was common in those early days because the burning out of the stumps had to be done in the late evening when other work could not be carried on and in those early days there were heavy night fogs and as a result those night workers were afflicted with Ague (said to be related to malaria). I have heard Dad say he had Ague when a young man, the result of this night work when the fog was heavy and the air chilly and damp. Mother said that later he was subject to Quinsey - but after the Doctor told him to let his beard grow to protect his throat - that seemed to be the end of the Quinsey.

  

                                                   The Children 

       Catherine Mast Haist (1814-1870) and  husband Christian farmed in Morriston, Lot 27 Rear 7, but had moved to Stephen Township, Huron County by 1851, as had Christian’s brother Matthias Peter. No picture of Catherine has been found but one of her daughter Sarah, who was both a Mast and a Haist, does.                                             

                                        

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Friederich Mast was still on the Morriston farm when the Petition of the Puslinch Residents for a mill at Aberfoyle was signed in 1843, but by 1850  he, too, looked westward,  moving to Menomonee Falls, Waukesha Co., Wisconsin. There he married and raised six children of whom Edward and Lydia, for certain, maintained  ties with their Puslinch cousins. (Letters in possession of Bill Huether). Friederich died in 1906 but another connection to the Morriston Masts was to be made. (See below). 

      

With perhaps great expectations, John Mast Junior took leave of his family to try life in Michigan. Sadly, the young man contracted pneumonia on a trip across the Lake and died June 17, 1856. The picture below was found in a Mast family Bible (preserved for many years by Doug Mast). It is most likely of John, taken before his departure from home..

                                                                                                                                  

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Brother Bernhard (1832-1881) married the lovely Mary Martin, daughter of more recent German immigrants (Lot 33 Rear 8).  All of Bernhard and Mary’s children died  except one and Bernhard himself died relatively young,

    Their son Charlie (1859-1927) married Martha Agnes Quillman and it is from this family that the name of Mast was perpetuated in Puslinch. Charlie was the grandfather of William Mast of Aberfoyle, Ed of Rockwood, Ray of Guelph, Jim of Ayr, and Jack, Stan and Doug of Puslinch.   

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       Like his older brother John, young Christian Mast was struck down at a young age. On March 1, 1854, the eighteen-year-old was clearing land with his brothers when a tree fell in an unexpected direction and he was killed  instantly. His sister Mary, ever after, would not permit  her men to work in the bush on that date.

                 This Mary Mast (1837-1911) married  first to William Martin ( the brother of Bernhard’s wife), a butcher in Morriston. The couple had  three children,  Billy (married Susannah Truesdale), Mary and Susannah “Sannie”(unm.). (Daughter Mary married John Huether and they  were the forbearers of today’s Huethers who have helped  to keep Morriston alive. It is said that on the day they married,  John and Mary hired a horse and buggy and drove to Strabane and back for a honeymoon).). Mary Mast Martin, widowed when Sannie was less than a year old,  later married  Ben Jacobs whose family had succeeded  Franz Kraft as owner of Lot 30 Rear 7. Their family consisted of Sam (1870-1946, unm.), Eliza Jacobs Clark, Emma Jacobs Fahrner, Annie Jacobs Telfer and Mabel May, an infant death. Ben and Mary are the great-grandparents of Marjorie Clark who has written extensively on the families of Morriston. 

       Youngest daughter Betsy (1843-1913)  married Philip Beaver (Bieber, 1841-1930) on December 6, 1862. They may have farmed in Puslinch and in Michigan but they ended their days in Hay Township, Huron County. The pictures of Betsy suggest the arduous life she led. Her  seven sons made  homes in Hay and  in  the west while daughter Mary Anne Snell remained in Hay. Her descendants still live in the area.         

  Johannes’ fifth son, Frank (1840-1923), on March 24, 1868  married Sarah Bergey of Hespeler.  They farmed in Puslinch and outside of Berlin / Kitchener, later retiring to Hespeler. Although they had no natural children, they adopted Minnie Wirsching who later married  Friederich’s son Edward, thus reviving the link with the Wisconsin Masts.  

Frank and Sarah on their Wedding Day      

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  William George, the youngest child of all (1844-1921) , and our grandfather, married Rosina Frederika Stein, daughter of Johann Stein,(lot 6, Calfas Survey, Morriston), a cooper and gardener, and Elizabeth Bender, the village mid-wife and nurse.  Will and Rosina were the parents of Will (1881), Frank (1884), Elsie May  Johnston (1886), Regina Emma 1890 (unm.),  Sarah Esther Blair (1892), Frederick Ambrose (1894), Hilda Rebecca Black (1896), Beatrice Rose Woolsey (1898) and Clarence, known as both “Clare” and “Dooley”. Of these children, Will and Frank  settled  in B.C. and Alberta and had many grandchildren and great-grandchildren who bear the name Mast today. Fred and Hilda both lost their first-born, Regina,  Sarah and Clarence were childless but Elsie Johnston became the mother of Hallie Taylor of Woodstock and Beatrice Woolsey, the mother of Betty and Beatrice Woolsey of Brooklyn and Mountsberg.  

 Johann Stein's house in Morriston still stands and is under restoration