I had a great deal of fun today eating toast with maple butter, adding what I had learned about Andrew's home place and grant, and uploading photos from my visit to Neil R. and Linda Ripley's sugar camp. Not so much fun trying to decipher the handwriting on a pile of deeds I brought back for Andrew's various transactions. In my update I have included only the deed for Andrew's original purchase of the land from the DesBarres estate. However, it seems that Andrew may have leased or mortgaged the property on at least two occasions although the title must have always reverted to him as his unmarried children did inherit the property. A good project for a rainy day.
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Today I was also able to add two more gravestones for Robert Ripley and Rebecca Vickery's children to the Michael Fortune Cemetery page. I also added four more gravestones for Andrew C. Ripley and Elizabeth B. Pipes children on the Fenwick Cemetery page. The two cemeteries are quite different. Michael Fortune is unfortunately not very well kept but the old stones and the knee-high wildflowers give it a wistful, romantic feel and a sense of pioneering spirit. There is definitely a sense of adventure wading into the tall grass but the bugs weren't really bad. The Fenwick Cemetery is very peaceful and well kept and I noticed a new grave when I visited in 2014. Many of the older stones have been replaced by a newer stone on which everyone in the family plot is listed. When I updated today, I posted several headstones which listed multiple wives and children. Whoever is creating the new stones definitely knows their genealogy. And hopefully someone has kept a record of who is really buried where. I would gladly be buried in either cemetery.
Today I edited the DesBarres Purchase page to add information about two documents I discovered for William Ripley (1774-1845), a lease and a deed for his 420 acre homestead in Maccan. I also added information about how the kind folks at Stiles Country B&B in Nappan helped me locate at least one home on the actual homestead and enjoy a short walk on the actual property. At this point I suspect that the original purchase by William was subsequently divided many times by later generations. More research will be required to determine the actual boundaries of the grant but this should not be too difficult as the south boundary was the division between the large grants of DesBarres and the Hon. Michael Francklin and the western boundary was the Maccan River. I have also added a page called To Build a Methodist Chapple which describes another purchase by William Ripley, Henry Ripey, and James Shipley from DesBarres. Today I also created a new page on the website about the River Philip Cemetery. While visiting this cemetery I was able to quickly locate the grave of Robert and Isabella's daughter Esther Ripley and her husband Thomas Donkin. When I remarked to Eleanor Ripley-Barrow that the stone was surprisingly clean she told me that the stone was only the second to be cleaned in a restoration project that was just beginning. The W. B. Wells association has given a great deal of assistance for maintenance and restoration of the cemetery and a small local group works hard to preserve their heritage. Many thanks for their efforts which make it possible for people like me to discover their roots. I have included only the handful of graves that are mentioned elsewhere on this website. However, many more are listed in a book of transcriptions by Murray L. Keating for a number of River Philip cemeteries from the Cumberland County Genealogical Society. I'm home again after a great trip to PEI and will begin adding new information to the website. Today I deciphered some of the deeds I brought back and have made updates and added photos to the pages on the Yorkshire Land Grant 1785, Lots 16 and 17, and Luke Harrison's Farm. I have also created a new page called The Fletcher lease which describes Robert's 1000 acre lease in Amherst. Although the mystery of the locations of Lots 16 and 17 has now been determined, it was a bit disappointing to discover that Robert and Isabella probably never lived at River Philip. I really did love it there. I was very pleasantly surprised to discover that Clair Ripley and Eleanor Ripley-Barrow know quite a bit about the descendants of John Ripley of River Philip as I had previously thought that little was known. Having determined the location of Luke Harrison's farm mentioned in Robert Ripley's will, it now appears that Robert Ripley Jr. and his wife Jane Rushton did live in Southampton. Hopefully their descendants are still in the Southampton area and I will be able to make some contacts there who are as knowledgable about that branch of the Ripley family as Clair and Eleanor are about theirs. I had a great deal of trepidation about trying to search for deeds at the deed office in Amherst (144 Robert Angus in the same building as the driver's license office). However, I found the system surprisingly easy to use. The staff will set you up on the computer and give you some basic pointers and you can ask for additional help if needed. I was able to search for various family members by name and by grantor and grantee to get lists of properties they had bought and sold. Once search returns appear it's a good idea to print the search results so you have the Book and page number for future reference; they don't appear on the deeds you print out. In the search return(s) you can click to view a deed which appears as a .pdf. Hover the mouse near the bottom to print. That's it. It's a little more complicated to search by a particular address. You need to do this in a slightly different area, but again the staff will assist you. The most recent deed will be returned and you will have to look at the deed to discover the previous owner and then do a search on that owner to chain back through the years. In less than two hours I was able to find about 40 deeds that I had been interested in finding. When I return home, I will be posting about most of these finds and will alert readers to updates in this blog. It didn't occur to me that I might have been able to send the documents electronically instead of printing them but I'll check that out in the future.
Late last night I got an invitation to drive a short distance from Amherst to see the family Bible of my 2nd great grandparents, Robert Ripley and Rebecca Vickery. I was very surprised by the size of the Bible…a good 5 inches thick and about 12 x 14. The marriages, births, and deaths were located between the Old and New Testaments. I learned a few new middle names and the death date of my great grandmother Hannah Elizabeth Ripley. There were also several newspaper clippings, a Methodist membership ticket, a funeral card for Mrs. Robert Ripley, and several plants and leaves pressed into the Bible. The family is taking very good care of the Bible and I am very grateful that they invited me to see it. It was the perfect way to end my research trip. I'm off to PEI now but will continue to blog about other finds. I should have known that when a crow hit the window during breakfast it was going to be a strange day. I had planned to go to Parrsboro to research Rebecca Vickery's family. However, I decided to pop in to Stiles B&B on my way to see whether Mike and Sari could give me any information about the original homestead of William Ripley and Hannah Coates. They were instantly able to identify locations 4,5,7, and many of the 20's and 30's on the Ernest Coates map. Sari insisted on driving me a few doors down to meet Curtis Bird and his wife on whose property two houses of interest were located. So, first thing this morning, I found myself walking on the original homestead of my 3rd great grandparents. William Ripley was born in 1774 so I doubt the house was built during his lifetime but it was still a wonderful experience to visit the land. Then Mike and Sari suggested I see the Maccan Tidal Bore which was due to happen within the hour and made arrangements for me to meet Gordon Boss there. Gordon is in his 80's and frequently drives over to meet tourists and talk about the Tidal Bore if he notices cars down by the river. While we were waiting, he identified locations #61 and #62 on the Ernest Coates Map, his family homestead and the original Boss Garage. He also pointed out the house and barn near the Maccan River Bridge which he said had belonged to Frank Blenkhorn. I'd been told that Robert William Ripley lived there. However, I'd once received a document that said my great grandparents Robert Salter Ripley and Hannah Eizabeth Ripley lived right by the Maccan River Bridge in the old Blenkhorn homestead. If that's true, my grandmother Alice Malinda Ripley was born in that house. After viewing the Tidal Bore I went back up the hill to pop in on Gardner Bud Hurley who showed me the original location of the house and well of Robert Ripley and Rebecca Vickery, my 2nd great grandparents. That house was later dragged across the road by a team of bulls. He said there was a second well down by the river which was likely their original place as there's an R. Ripley on the A. F. Church map 1873 in that location. Mike and Sari had also arranged for me to meet Diane Bacon, their family historian. On the way over I wolfed down the delicious blueberry muffins Sari had given me. Diane has done some spectacular work on descendants of Henry Ripley and all four of her grand parents were from Cumberland County. A poster she had made for a presentation to the local genealogical society included photos of 5 generations and included many Bacons, Smiths, and Ripleys. She also introduced me to a fan-style family tree which seemed much better than a traditional tree. By this time it was after 3:00 so I decided against driving to Parrsboro and headed back to the genealogical centre where I made an astonishing and completely unexpected discovery. Andrew Ripley had purchased land from the desBarres Estate in 1834 (Deed Book M, p. 253) that adjoined Henry Ripley's purchase. I've not yet determined whether this is the location of his homestead on Hwy 2 in Fenwick, but I'm heading down to the Deeds Office first thing tomorrow morning. Before today, I was under the impression that little was known of the descendants of second-generation John Ripley, who settled in River Philip. That impression quickly vanished when I met up with Clair Ripley and his niece Eleanor Ripley-Barrow for an information-packed tour of River Philip. The tour began inside River Philip United Church where the tombstones of Methodist Minister John Black and his wife Barbara are displayed on the wall as they are buried beneath the altar . Clair also shared information about his trip to Yorkshire to investigate Ripley history. Next stops included the original burial places of William Donkin and George Oxley whose graves had been moved to the River Philip United Church. We also visited John Ripley's burial place and the Williamsdale and Wyvern Cemeteries. Along the way, Clair and Eleanor named almost every resident of River Philip and Collingwood Corner, providing information about who had lived on each property originally. As they talked names, dates, and families, it was clear that Clair and Eleanor also have a very personal connection with all the Ripley ancestors in the area. Clair and I are now quite certain about the locations of the Yorkshire Land Grants #14 (John Black), #16 and #17 (Henry and Robert Ripley), #18 (William Donkin), and #19 (George Oxley) and I will be making updates to the Yorkshire Land Grant and Lots #16 and #17 pages when I return from the trip. Many thanks to Clair and Eleanor for a fantastic day! If I were to write up today's events as a short story, it would seem contrived. For breakfast, Tannis and I were served delicious pancakes with maple syrup. When I jokingly asked if it was Ripley maple syrup the host produced the jug of syrup which had indeed come from the Ripley sugar camp. Last year, Gail and I had visited every store and gift shop in Cumberland County in vain searching for the elusive Ripley syrup. Tannis left for home and I continued to the genealogical centre to attack the papers of Ernest Coates again. Just before lunch, Marney Gilroy, who turned out to be a distant cousin popped in with an astonishing document compiled by Lawson C. Smith. After hearing the maple syrup story, she made a few phone calls and soon I had plans to visit Neil R. and Linda Ripley's sugar camp in Fenwick! Neil and Linda were wonderfully welcoming, fed me homemade bread with to-die-for maple spread, gave me a tour of their camp, even turning on the water wheel, and I came away with more maple syrup, bars, and spread than will fit in my luggage. Best of all, Neil was able to tell me exactly where my 2nd great grandfather Andrew Ripley's sugar camp had been located, just up the hill from his place. Since the Old Fenwick Mine is directly across the road, Andrew's sugar camp was located on his land grant. When I return home, I will update the Ripley Sugar Woods pages with the new information. I guess that little talk I had with Andrew in the cemetery yesterday really paid off. |
AuthorHi there! My name is Mallory Burton and I started researching the Ripley family in 2011. I'd describe myself as a careful amateur who's more interested in story than names and dates. I hope you enjoy my website and blog. I also have a public Mallory/Ripley tree on Ancestry with over 4,000 names. To contact me, please comment on any one of my blog posts. Archives
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