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My first immigrant ancestor of the Smith family was Isaac. He was born in the townsland of Gorteen, parish of Castlecomer, County Kilkenny, Ireland in 1810, the son of Edward Smith and Johanna Booth. The records for the Church of Ireland diocese of Ossory shows that Isaac’s father Edward, a farmer from the townsland of Coolbaun, parish of Castlecomer, married Johanna Booth of Castlecomer in 1801.

The Smiths, Booths and other English Protestants had been brought to Castlecomer, Ireland from Yorkshire, England a century earlier to work in the local iron mines. Over time they integrated with the local Catholic population, became “more Irish than the Irish”, and by 1800, most were barely surviving on very small rented farms. Isaac Smith immigrated to Huntley township about 1830, following his Booth relatives and others friends who had been immigrating from Gorteen to Huntley since 1817. (ref Elliott p35).

In 1834 Isaac married Margaret Pierce, the daughter of John Pierce and Catherine Morris. The Kilkenny immigrants to Huntley, both Protestant and Catholic, were less well off than most Irish immigrants of the time, and had much difficulty in finding the means to purchase their Huntley farms, and Isaac was unable to purchase a farm for many years. In those days it was common for wealthier landowners to allow a poor new immigrant to live freely on a bush property, provided he “developed” it i.e. cleared the land, and in this fashion Isaac began his new life in Canada..

In 1837, a Captain Kidd stopped at Isaac’s home to ask him to help put down the famous Mackenzie-Papineau rebellion of 1837. (ref the Ottawa Citizen of November 13, 1926). Margaret was in bed, ill along with her three-day-old infant. Isaac told Capt. Kidd that he would be delighted to go but that he could not very well leave his wife in her helpless state. Overhearing this, Margaret called out: “If the country is in danger don’t consider me. I’ll be up in a few days and will be able to look after myself’’. Isaac and Margaret were wholehearted loyalists to Queen and Country, family, and their Protestant religion.

The rebellion was no sooner over when he was cheated out of his farm. In 1938, after years of backbreaking labor to build his home and clear the thick bush from the land, an unscrupulous landlord asked him to leave. This was not an uncommon practice in early Canada; not all of the bad landlords were in Ireland! Isaac and Margaret, along with their five small children, then moved out to live beside their Pierce in-laws in Goulbourn Township.

The 1851 Canada Census for Goulbourn Township lists the family as follows:

Isaac Smith, Shoemaker, born in Ireland, Church of England, age 41

Margaret Smith, born in Three Rivers, Quebec; C of E, age 39

Fanny, born in Canada age 16

Edward, born in Canada age 14 (my greatgrandfather)

Isaac, born in Canada age 13

John, born in Canada age 8

Sarah, born in Canada age 5

Isaac Smith died in 1855, at the age of 44, and was buried in the graveyard of the Wesley Methodist Church in Stittsville (now Stittsville United Church). His wife Margaret died in 1904 at the age of 93.

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SECOND GENERATION

Edward Smith(1839-1904) and Mary Ann Wilson (1811-1904)

In 1867 their oldest son Edward married Mary Ann Wilson, the daughter of Charles Broughton Wilson and Mary Ann Tripp of Fitzroy Township. The marriage was at St. Thomas Anglican Church at Woodlawn, Ont.

On April 9, 1876, Edward Smith and his wife Mary Ann committed an act that required extraordinary courage in that intolerant age: they loaded up their horse drawn sled with their five children of that time, and drove down to St. Michael’s Roman Catholic Church in Fitzroy Harbor, where all were re-baptized and a Catholic marriage ceremony performed. Like their parents, Edward Smith and Mary Ann Wilson had been dedicated Protestants, both active members of St. Thomas Anglican Church in Dunrobin, and Edward was a leading Orangeman.

According to my mother (their granddaughter) Edward and Mary Ann were a well read couple with a substantial library of books. Independent thinkers, they came together to the conclusion that they should change religions. Unlike many Irish, the Smiths had seen little bigotry in Huntley Township in Canada and Castlecomer in Ireland, where they had lived in harmony, even intermarrying on occasion. So when Edward moved to Torbolton the comments made there by his fellow Orangemen shocked him, and often found him defending his Catholic neighbors. Edward Smith was more open to changing his religion than most people at that time.

Not all of their neighbors accepted their change of religion. Their bigotry of that era was very real. On the twelfth of July, 1876, with Edward away and Mary Ann alone at home with the small five children, a large cross was set ablaze Ku Klux clan style at the front gate, while other fires were lit all around the house. With the fires blazing, young men were heard “hooting and hollering “ loud threats and abuse as they drove their speedy one horse buggies back and forth across the front the home. Noticing the rifles in their hands, a terrified Mary Ann huddled beneath a bed, protecting her small children by lying between them and the guns out front Then she heard the gunshots, the whistling sound of flying bullets, and a clear “thud” as each bullet entered the wall behind the bed. The eldest of the five children, my Great Uncle Isaac Smith, described the event “The most vivid memory of my life was hearing the bullets whistle by me, and later seeing the bullet holes in the wall above the bed” he recalled. My grandmother Catherine had not yet been born. Had the shots been more accurate, I and thousands of others would not be alive today!

The perpretaters were never brought to justice. Edward’s parish priest begged him to move out of the neighborhood rather than fight and endanger the lives of his family. This the stubborn Edward adamantly refused to do. Instead he confronted the young terrorists. The violence was not repeated, but the threats and harassment to the Smith family continued for some time.

Edward Smith never forgot the firm Christian practices taught by his fervently religious Protestant parents, including reading and studying the Bible, which he continued to do daily. At the same time he became a very devout Catholic. On a tall white memorial in St. Michael’s graveyard in Fitzroy Harbour is inscribed his simple message: “Please Pray of His Soul”.

His wife Mary Ann Wilson, a product of wealthy, aristocratic and firmly Protestant English families, centered the last years of her life around the Catholic church she loved so well, and where for many years she attended daily Mass. Of course she had long forgiven those who had attempted to murder her and her small children. At her funeral in 1926, in an age when Protestants and Catholics would not be “caught dead” inside each others’ churches, her pallbearers were six Protestant nephews, as she requested. The Catholic Church at Fitzroy Harbour was packed with Mary Ann’s Protestant friends and relatives. Mary Ann loved everyone, and everyone loved Mary Ann.

Children of Edward Smith and Mary Anne Wilson are:

+ 2 i. Margaret⁴ Smith, born 1868 in Torbolton twp, Ontario.

+ 3 ii. Charles Broughton Smith, born 1870 in Torbolton twp, Ontario.

+ 4 iii. Mary Anne(Annie) Smith, born 1872 in Torbolton Twp, Ontario.

5 iv. Isaac Smith, born 1873 in Torbolton twp, Ontario; died November 16, 1960.

+ 6 v. John "Jack" Smith, born 1876 in Torbolton twp, Ontario; died 1943 in Storthoaks, Sask..

+ 7 vi. Thomas Smith, born 1878 in Torbolton twp, Ontario; died 1972.

+ 8 vii. Catherine Smith, born 1884 in Torbolton twp, Ontario; died 1923 in Luskville, Quebec.

+ 9 viii. Joe Smith, born August 1885 in Torbolton twp, Ontario; died 1945 in Saskatchewan.

10 ix. Francis Smith, born December 18, 1887 in Torbolton twp, Ontario.

11 x.Frances Sarah (Fannie) Smith, born in Torbolton twp, Ont. She married William J Muldoon July 05, 1909; born February 17, 1880 in Torbolton twp, Ont.; died July 21, 1965 in Arnprior, Ont..

+ 12 xi. Patrick Smith, born February 02, 1891 in Torbolton twp, Ont; died October 30, 1946 in Torbolton twp, Ont.

13 xii. Lawrence Stephen "Laurence" Smith, born 1894 in Torbolton twp, Ontario; died 1910.

The children of Edward and Mary Ann married into the Irish Catholic community of the Ottawa Valley. Of their eleven children only one, Isaac, did not marry. Four of the family settled in Saskatchewan, while the others lived locally. Pat married “Gertie” Muldoon, daughter of John James Muldoon, and settled at Dunrobin. My grandmother Catherine Smith married Patrick Muldoon and settled at Luskville, Quebec.

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THIRD GENERATION

Patrick Muldoon (1883-c.1960) and Catherine Smith (1884-1923)

Catherine died young., leaving my mother an orphan at the age of 12. My mother grew up in the family of her Uncle Pat and Aunt Gertie, where she remained until marrying my father John Robinson in 1938.

SMITH Descendants