The Fenian Raids Part IV: A Family Journey

Armed with a full First name I headed off to Ancestry to take a better look. Of course an English name Like Joseph Taylor will bring up hundreds if not thousands of options to wade through. My Dad figured he would be in his 20s or 30’s. Any older and it would have been more likely he would have been put on the previously mentioned “Paper” militia and would not have been eligible for the Medal.

This is where it became a little more complicated. Although I had his name, it was still a very large sea of similar names to wade through.

Although we knew who the medal belonged to by name, we wanted to see if we could build up a family tree and possibly pinpoint how his medal made the long trip down to the southern United States.

Originally I thought I had gotten a lucky break with the Canada, Fenian Raids Bounty Applications records. He was relatively easy to find within the records and the only Joseph Taylor that was to be found under the 24th Kent on the list. It also gave the name of the town from which he applied for the medal. Awesome! Except…

I was having a difficult time making out the name of the town (see previous comment about horrible penmanship) and the application did little to narrow down how old he was.

At this point I had sent the information over to my Dad and the persistent person I am tried to manually narrow down my choices. I tried different age ranges and regions, coming with a handful of candidates but nothing verifiable. Sometimes the luck just runs out!

As I had also previously mentioned, my dad is far better at reading funny handwriting (possibly because it is similar to his own! - ha) and was easily able to discern he was in Bothwell, Ontario at the time of the application. Bothwell, Ontario is a small town just on the very edge of Chatham Kent Country.

Bothwell, Ontario

Although mobility between towns had increased by this time it was more likely you would have stayed put in the town you were born or immigrated too. With that in mind I started searching the census records for Bothwell.

Canada currently collects census records every 5 years since the 50’s (previously 10 years), but will only publicly release a census to the archives when 92 years has passed after its collection. The 1921 census is the last released, with 1931 to be released in 2023.

I started with the 1901 census of the Bothwell area. The 1901 census had a Joseph Taylor, but with an immigration year of 1871 which was one year after his joining the army. Although knowing that census takers weren’t always accurate with their recording, this didn’t completely discredit it being the right Taylor. I did make note of the Wife’s name, as well as the children, which would come in handy later.

We decided to review the 1871 census to see if a Joseph Taylor would show up in the Bothwell records . A 19 year old Taylor did show up in the records, having immigrated from England with his family, but it remained hard to verify for certain if this was the right Taylor. No immigration year was present on this census.*

Changing tactics, we moved ahead to the 1911 census. The Taylor in this census immigrated in 1867 - three years before the conflict. He also was married to an Alice, like the 1901 census, and had matching children’s names as well.** This was most likely our guy.

At this point I began looking for burial information, as this is often the best way to verify the Birth and Death date of an individual if a death/birth certificate isn’t coming up. A quick google search lead me to the CanadaGenWeb Cemetery project.*** Having the tombstone in the Bothwell Cemetery was another good sign we were on the right track. Here I was able to reasonable verify that he was born in 1850 and lived to almost 100, passing away in 1943. Alice was born in 1860 and passed away in 1923.

As mentioned Taylor is a very popular last name, but the Alice on the tombstone had a relatively unique last name: Pink. With such a unique last name it made it easier to verify and find other documents pertaining to the couple and their life in Canada.

Taylor Tombstone - The Genweb website lists her as FINK but closer look at her stone via Photoshop shows that it is a P.

Both Joseph and Alice had immigrated from England with their families as teens but at different times and appear to be from very different parts of the country. At the time of writing this I have not come across a marriage certificate for the couple but know they went on to have 7 children.

Border hoping for leisure or work seemed to be popular amongst all of the Taylor children. Most didn’t stay long, but one daughter, Alice Jr eventually immigrated there. This fact would become the biggest clue in figuring out how the Canadian Medal had made it so far south.

Alice’s first husband had past away at the age of 35, leaving her a widow with a young 4 year old son named Edward. In 1935, 10 years after her Husband’s death, Alice (39) and Edward (16) moved to the United States with Alice’s 2nd husband George, whom she had married in 1931.

In 1942, Edward joined the Air Force and was sent to the Fort Custer Training Center. He was 22. When the war ended he returned to Michigan and married.

During Edward’s time in the Military, Joseph Taylor passed away at the age of 92. I wasn’t able to track down any will so it is impossible to say for sure who received the medal at the time of his death.

Fort Custer Training Center

Possibly it was his son Charles, who signed the death certificate. Or Alice Jr in Michigan. Alice’s son would eventually end up in AZ so it is plausible to believe it was either passed onto him directly or indirectly sometime before his own death. As a military man himself, it is possible he felt connected to His Grandfather through service.

Census records don’t show a clear timeline for Edward’s move towards AZ but he does show up in a city directory in Phoenix, Arizona in 1956 at the age of 37. Previous to this he was listed in a New York directory in 1951.

Of course the paper trail doesn’t offer a full narrative of events, but we can logically assume Edward’s move was the reason the medal eventually made it to that Antique dealer. Although he had passed away long before it actually made it there.

After a bit more digging it appears that there may have been a second marriage for Edward, and the inclusion of step-children. It was a young adult who brought the medal in, according to my Cousin, so this leaves possible explanation for that outcome.

So from the small town of Bothwell to the big city of Phoenix, the medal travelled far through a very short genealogical time.

It was really interesting to get to follow this story. While the task of finding the name of the Medal’s owner was fairly simple, it was fun to try and piece together a life through the records and discover more about a fairly glossed over part of Canadian history. Although I may never be able to verify its direct path, I’m pretty confident in the plausible timeline.

Next time I plan on summing up all the “characters” in this story, followed by why so many family Medals seem to end up at the Antique dealer.

Missed the beginning of this series - catch up here:

Part I - https://bit.ly/2Lgimh0

Part II - https://bit.ly/2VrUmfJ

Part III - https://bit.ly/2WNs6DW

*The census often changes its questions - although it has become more consistent since the 50’s.

** The 1921 census has his immigration year as 1863 - so either this date or 1867 is more likely then the 1871 date. He also showed up in the 1891 census with his wife Alice and the first three children.

*** Genweb and Find a grave rely on volunteers to document stones, information and location.