John Worthington Jr.,
of Puslinch Township (1830-1913)
Lot 18, F. Conc. 7
Originally part of the Gore District, after 1850 Puslinch Township in
Wellington County received a regular influx of farmers from neighbouring
counties to its south (Wentworth), west (Waterloo) and east (Halton). John Worthington was
raised in Flamborough Township, Wentworth Co., the son of John Worthington and
Mary Ann Trusket SIC
(spelling from the family Bible, probably Truscott).
His wife, Elizabeth Almira Case, was the daughter of John Case & Elizabeth
Wedge of lot 17, conc.3, W. Flamborough. Almira's parents were born in Wentworth c.1805 (both
listed their ages as 46 on the 1851 census). When John and Almira came to Puslinch, they
brought with them interesting early-Canadian backgrounds. -see below
At the time that John Worthington Jr. and Almira moved to Puslinch they
had 7 children ranging from ages 22 to 1. Three
more daughters were born after they moved here: Josephine (later
Mrs. James Tawse of lot 27, f. conc.8, Puslinch), Ida Alberta (died
an infant)
and Ethel Gertrude (later
Mrs. Thos. E. Surerus, Aberfoyle). The latter, known as "Gert" Worthington, rode from
farm to farm on horseback in Puslinch giving piano lessons to the children. (Her photo on horseback is in the Society's photographic collection, as
well as one of her father John at a threshing at Ord's farm.)
The eldest two Worthington daughters married local farmers: Annie (1855-1939),
Mrs. George Wyse of Beverly
Township; and Mary Elizabeth ("Bessie" 1858-1884)
who married the boy next door, so to speak, when she married Thomas Ingram Jr.
from lot 18, rear conc.7. Thomas became a well-known local auctioneer. Bessie died tragically in her 30s, the mother of three
children aged 5 yrs. and under, after taking them to the Mill Pond in Aberfoyle for a
picnic. She had promised them the
outing the day before, and despite finding herself in considerable pain on
awakening that day, she took them on the promised picnic only to collapse of
appendicitis which was then inoperable. The
three children - Myrtle (later Mrs. Mark Leslie, Beverly Twp.),
Annie (later
Mrs.Kenneth McDonald, Crieff) and Corm - were raised in
the homes of different relatives, with John and Almira raising young Corm.
Two of John and Almira's children settled in British Columbia: daughter
Emma (b.c.1860) m. Harry Doughty who had an interesting job as an interpreter for the
railroad there, after he had studied Chinese; and George Harvey (b.1876)
who was a druggist. A few years
before his death, John Sr. was able to make the trip to B.C. by train to visit
his family there. A photo of John
with Harvey and family in Vancouver, taken in an open touring car by "The
Stanley Park Photographers", is treasured by his descendants.
The rest of the children remained in the area: son Jackson (1862-1950)
farmed lot 25, r. conc.2, Puslinch; daughter Ellen (1864-1942)
married Anthony Mason who had a butcher shop in Aberfoyle; son Percy Charles
(b.c.1866) farmed near Clappison's Corners, and daughter Clara (1869-1962)
married John King and lived in Guelph for many years where John ran a livery
stable. The Kings retired in Aberfoyle, to the Ingram house, after Thos. Ingram
had remarried and moved to Toronto. Clara ran a tearoom there in the early 1900s.
The Ingram house was on the west side of the village of Aberfoyle where
the Owens, who started the Aberfoyle Antique Market, moved in the 1960s.
John and Almira's
Canadian Background
John Worthington's parents had emigrated to Canada from Lancashire,
England and it is possible that both of them had come as children with their
parents, as John Sr. and Mary Ann were married in Niagara on July 1st, 1826 (from family
Bible). So far, no earlier Canadian record has been found
for them. John Jr. was the third of their nine children, 5
sons and 4 daughters. The senior Worthingtons are buried in Millgrove Municipal
Cemetery, as they had farmed in Flamborough
most of their married life. On the 1861 census they were in E.
Flamborough, but after John Sr.'s death, Mary Ann moved to W. Flamborough, where
she appears on the 1871 census in her son John Jr.'s household.
Because John was one of 5 brothers, Samuel being the eldest, he had gone
out on his own. The 1875
Wentworth County Atlas shows John Jr. farming lot 1, conc.8, W.
Flamborough, but he sold that and moved to Puslinch in the late 1870s. The land record
books for Puslinch note that he purchased lot 18, f. conc.7
on Jan. 6th, 1877 from David Stirton, who had earlier purchased
this lot from Kenneth McKenzie. John
Jr. would have been 47 years old when he made this move.
Almira, John's wife, proudly told her grandchildren of her Pennsylvania
German heritage. Her granddaughter
Almira, Mrs. Cecil Weekes of Aberfoyle, inherited the Worthington Bible from her
mother Clara (Worthington) King, and passed on family stories to her own children. They were told
that the decision to move to Upper Canada by many Pennsylvania German families
was because of property losses during the American Revolution and difficult
economic times in the decades following.
As for Elizabeth Almira's family, her father John Case's parents were
Peter and Jane Case, who emigrated in the late 1790s to Glanford
Township, Wentworth County. Flamborough
Twp. assessment records show that they moved on to W. Flamborough in 1802.
Peter was a relative of the earliest family to settle in Flamborough -
the Morden family. One Morden child was named Peter Case Morden after him. The
Case's two eldest sons married daughters of Jacob and Mary Smuck (Smoke in early
records) of Glanford Township, also a family of German origin who came into
Upper Canada from the States.
Elizabeth Wedge, John Case's wife, was a daughter of another family of German origin who had come to Wentworth County after living for several generations in the U.S. The Wedges settled in Glanford and Beverly Townships. Not all of the German families from Pennsylvania were Mennonite - the Cases, Wedges and Smucks are among those who were not. The intermarriages between these families indicate a close connection. It is quite possible that they came into Glanford Township together, although there is no record of this. It is recorded, however, that the settlers coming to Upper Canada in the late 1700s travelled in groups, depending on each other, as the trek would have been difficult for a family on its own.
WRITTEN FOR THE PUSLINCH HISTORICAL SOCIETY'S WEBSITE PAGE, "PIONEER
OF THE MONTH" FOR JULY 2003
By Lynn Crow