My cousin Tannis told me a story about our Grandma Alice (Ripley) Mallory going to the horse races in Calgary once that I first found hard to believe. However, many details have fallen into place since which confirm the story that Robert Salter Ripley, our great grandfather, raised trotting horses in Amherst. I decided to write this up as a Grandma Goes to the Races page on the website today after another piece of the story fell into place. One of my favourite distant cousins, Art Ripley, is currently in hospital recovering nicely from a broken hip. Art loves to talk about the old days and I love to listen so I've been chatting with him regularly. Today I told him the "grandma goes to the race story" to see whether he'd ever heard that Robert Salter Ripley raised trotting horses in the area. Art confirmed that before his time, there was a very good horse named Darno (he hadn't seen the name written) stabled at Carl Ripley's place. So I've added that to the story and will continue to look into early harness racing in Nova Scotia. Who knew?
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I think I've finally found my niche in genealogy. For some reason, I'm completely captivated by the idea of mapping out original settlements. I want to know exactly where old homesteads and leases were located and I want to visit those places and walk around on those lands. I'd love to create a virtual version of the old Maccan and Nappan areas on a website like Second Life to help me better visualize the community. When I paint, I'm only interested in painting landscapes. I wonder if it's connected. Two nights ago I discovered an online version of the 1795 report on the Maccan-Nappan leases made by Captain John MacDonald to J. F. W. Desbarres. The report on Maccan-Nappan begins at image 736 in reel C-1455. I was able to view a few pages as a preview but it seems the site requires a subscription. In trying to understand where the properties of my great grandfathers were located I will inevitably need to know the history of every property mentioned in the report and the family histories of their neighbours and this will be a valuable resource. I have finally located the house where my grandmother was likely born and posted about it on a new page called The Blenkhorn Place which you'll find under Robert Salter Ripley and Hannah Elizabeth Ripley. 5 pieces of confirming evidence have come together: a family page from an Earle Ripley that said the family homestead was near the Maccan Bridge and known as the Blenkhorn Place, 3 octogenarians in Maccan who have confirmed that Frank Blenkhorn lived in the house by the Maccan Bridge, a photo of the house from the daughter-in-law of Robert Salter Ripley's son James Trueman Ripley, and two deeds, one for Robert Salter Ripley's purchase of the property from brother-in-law William Ripley and his sale to Frank Blenkhorn. From census records I was able to determine that the family lived on the property from at least 1881 to its sale in 1896 which means my grandmother Alice Malinda Ripley (1893-1976) was likely born in the house. I also believe the property was the southernmost part of William Ripley's original 420 acre purchase from DesBarres. Very exciting stuff! 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. |
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
May 2024
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