Tag Archives: Little Harry Williams

As Seen From The Car

I happened upon an historic moment while driving home the other day: the painting of the Williams barn in Poplar Grove. Built around 1865, it is certainly one of the oldest barns in our area, if not the province. It was built by my great-great grandfather, Robert Williams, and is owned by his great-grandson Robert, known as Robbie. Robbie and his wife, Sandra, have taken loving care of both the original house and the barn.

While the survival of the barn is notable, the fact that it is still being used for more or less the same purpose as when it was constructed is a miracle. Robbie has harness racing horses, at least two at present, and also keeps chickens, and it is almost certain old Robert would have had both types of animals as well, and probably also a cow and pig. Many old barns and outbuildings are no longer used for animal husbandry, so it is lovely to see the barn still proudly fulfilling its original purpose, and it shines now with the new coat of paint.

Perhaps I should have stopped closer to the barn to take the photo, but I like the idea of seeing this from afar, through time. Take away the light poles, wires and pavement and you could almost imagine this was 100 years ago.

Another recent project in the area caught my eye a couple of years ago, and led to another from-the-car photo. An industrious man who lives not far from us builds small hip-roofed baby barns to sell, and nearly always has one on the go in his front yard. In 2022, I noticed a concrete pad had been poured near his vegetable garden and wondered what he was going to build. A portable saw mill arrived and was placed on the pad a few weeks later, and soon he began sawing logs into lumber.

A mill is better preserved and more useable under cover, so how do you build a building for a sawmill? You saw the logs yourself, of course, and build it around the mill.

The building soon had a roof, an opening at the front to roll the logs through from the stand you see in the photo, and a door for the operator to use. The baby barns are now being built using some of his own lumber, in the old way. The family sadly had a fire in their house and have been under reconstruction for the past year, so no doubt the sawmill has come in very handy for that project as well.

History in the making.

Barbara Ann

Reunion, the software I use to keep track of my family tree, has a handy feature that allows me to see dates of family events in Apple Calendar. I’ve added one for birthdays and one for death anniversaries, and I appreciate being reminded of those still alive, and those long gone but still part of my story.

Today I was reminded that my maternal great-grandmother, Barbara Ann Williams, died on this date in 1908. She married Patterson Hutchinson in January 1900, in what is said to have been the first wedding at St. John’s Anglican in Ellerslie, a beautiful little country church built by Barbara’s brother, the renowned “Fox House” and church builder “Little” Harry Williams.

They had three children: my grandmother, Thelma, born in 1901, her brother Stanley, born in 1903, and a second boy, George, who died at birth in 1904. In 1905, Patterson died, aged 37.

Barbara remarried eight months later to John Newcombe from Northam, just outside Tyne Valley. As far as I know, it was his first and only marriage. Barbara and John had three children: Lillian, John and George. John died at birth in 1906, and George died in August 1908, three months after his mother, who quite possibly died giving birth to him. Lillian seems to have married a Roderick MacLean from Lot 16 in 1926 and died in 1957. Lillian may also have really been Patterson’s daughter and adopted by John Newcombe, but I can’t yet confirm that.

According to 1911 census records, John Newcombe and daughter Lillian had moved back with his parents. His step-children, Thelma and Stanley, were listed in that census as living with their uncle Little Harry and his family in Poplar Grove. I have no idea if my grandmother, Thelma, kept in touch with the Newcombe family, but she died in 1927 aged 25 and, in a sad echo of her mother’s life, left behind two children under the age of 4: my mother, Vivian, and her brother, Edgar.

Genealogy is generally pretty straightforward: I had parents, who had parents, who had parents, back and back to the cave or the savannah (or the Garden of Eden, if you are so inclined). But drop down in the middle of some of these stories, and witness the happenstance that kept people alive just long enough to give birth to a child that is key to your existence, and life seems even more miraculous. All of our ancestors successfully bobbed and weaved just long enough, and here we are.

Barbara Ann Williams Hutchinson Newcombe, Saint James Anglican Church Cemetery, Port Hill, PEI
Two little boys gone too soon.