WILLIAM  DAGG

(1796 - 1864)

His Relatives and Descendants

by

Ainsley Geo. Dagg

 

 

 

INTRODUCTION

 

         I became active in my endeavours to record the history of my tribe of Daggs about 1970.  For perhaps 10 years before that I had made a modest effort to obtain pertinent material from my mother, Aunt Vera Dagg and a few other relatives but I learned to my disappointment that there were virtually no records available within the family.

 

         There was nothing to indicate that anyone had ever assembled a report of our origins and migrations.  It was generally be­lieved that the Daggs had come to Canada from Tipperary in Ire­land about 1840 - 1850 and settled in Bruce County in Ontario. They moved on to Manitoba around the turn of the century and remained there until 1923 when my parents and their family of four made yet another westward migration to Vancouver.

 

         However, specific dates of the various moves were lacking and the precise localities where they had lived in Ireland and in which they had first settled in Canada were not known.  More seriously, no one seemed to know the names and details of my great-grandparents, or their ancestors.  My father passed away in 1956, his sister in 1965.  Their parents and other oldtimers who might have remembered some useful information were all gone.

 

         Several other factors made the task difficult and at times frustrating.  Firstly, as I progressed in my research I found that there are and have been many more Daggs than I ever imag­ined.  Secondly, a few Christian names such as James, Richard, William, Thomas and John were used repeatedly in most of the old and not always closely related Dagg families.  To make matters worse, it was often the custom to name the first or second son after his father.  The same applied to mothers and daughters. Finally, few if any children were given more than one name until more recent times.

 

         The first really useful material I received came in 1970 as a result of a letter to the Anglican Church in Kincardine, Ontar­io.  Two ladies associated with the church, Mrs. George (Lita) Young and Valeria A. Mills, whose mother was Emma Rebecca (Dagg) Wardell (1870-1955), provided many details which were entirely new to me and most of their information was extracted from church and family records.  Other sources of material were the Land Registry Office in Walkerton, Ontario, the National Archives in Ottawa, the Ontario Archives in Toronto, and the University of Western Ontario in London which I visited in 1979.

 

         Occasionally help comes as a complete surprise and from a new and unsolicited source.  For me, a most rewarding experience commenced in 1977 when I received a letter from a Murray Robert­son of Dunkeld in Perthshire, Scotland.  He had been searching for information about a distant relative, Lieutenant Thomas Dagg (1794-1847), and had made several visits to Tipperary (which he called Dagg country) for that purpose.  In 1976 he interviewed a Richard (Dicky) Dagg in Nenagh, Tipperary whom I had questioned during my visit in 1972.

 

         Learning of my interest from Dicky Dagg, Mr. Robertson wrote to me and we eventually exchanged several lengthy letters and the material each had collected.  His information was most extensive and quite fascinating but at that time I was unable to relate positively any of the many Daggs he listed with my known ances­tors.  However, I carefully filed his material with the hope that a link might be established in the future and now, in 1990, I have found several items of his report are most valuable indeed.

 

         During my visit to Bruce County in 1979 I contacted a Mrs. Russell McConnel of the Anglican Church of Bervie.  It was in that community that both my father and my grandfather were born and in which several Dagg families settled in the early 1850s.  She provided names to contact for Kincardine Anglican Church records, the Bruce County Genealogical Society and other source as well as some useful material from the early Bervie records.

 

         So, in 1983, after more than a hundred letters of enquiry and many miles of travel, I realized that the story I had hoped to present was far from complete.  For example, I was unable to determine just when my great-grandfather James (1829-1860) and his father William (1796-1864) arrived in Canada or precisely where in Tipperary they came from.  But  as time slipped by, I decided to record the material I had and make additions later on if further research proved successful.  Now, six years later, after two visits to the Mormon Genealogical Centre in Salt Lake City, a trip to Ottawa and nearby Lanark County as well as Toron­to, I have added considerably to my fund of information and must now re-write several parts of my narrative and amend my charts.

 

         Finally  I would be remiss indeed if I did not record my appreciation for much fresh material regarding my mother's ances­tors, the Duncans and McFees.  This was given to me by Margaret (Marmie) Longair, a granddaughter of my mother's brother, Corey Duncan.

 

 

EARLY HISTORY

 

         During my early years when living at home, most references to the origins of the Dagg family indicated simply that they were Irish Protestants   Knowing very little Irish history, I conclud­ed that they had lived in Ireland for hundreds of years before immigrating to Canada in the early 19th century.  Now, evidence clearly shows that this was not so.

 

         When in London, England in 1972, I spent four productive hours in the library of the Society of Genealogists.  Perhaps the most interesting evidence found in its very extensive records and volumes was that there were no Daggs listed in the census of Ireland of 1659.  In addition, Volume Two of Irish Pedigrees by O'Hart gives names of families residing in Ireland from the 11th century to the end of the 16th century but Dagg was not listed.

 

         An incomplete list of English army personnel given land by Oliver Cromwell after he subdued the Irish in 1651 contained no Daggs.  Similarly, I could find no evidence of any Daggs in King William's English force which fought the Battles of Boyne and Limerick in 1690 and 1691.  His Protestant army was 70,000 strong and many of his men were given Irish land as a reward for their services but I was unable to examine more than a partial roster.

 

         Among other lists which I hastily scanned was one of the Huguenots,  some of the Protestant refugees from France, Holland and Belgium, who found a home in Ireland in the late 17th and early 18th centuries.  Although the name Dagg did not appear, D'Agar and Dagar did but I can find no basis for believing that these latter names were eventually converted to Dagg.

 

         Another reference titled 'Supplement to Irish Families' by Edward MacLysaght and published by Helicon Ltd., of Dublin in 1964 contained the name Dagg with the following description:

 

         “During the past hundred years this name has become quite numerous in Dublin and is also found in north Tipperary and in Cork.  Before that, families of Dagg were established in Counties Wicklow and Wexford.  The first I have met within Ireland was John Dagg whose marriage license bond was lodged in Cork in 1679 (four more such bonds are recorded for the eighteenth century) Another was a student of Dublin University from 1714 to 1719;  he was born in Cornwall in 1686.  Authorities differ as to the origin of the name:  Reaney, the most reliable, derives it from Old-French 'dague', a dagger, i.e. one who carries a dagger.'”

 

         Another volume containing some very exciting evidence was titled "The Visitations of the County of Cornwall".  Unfortunate­ly, I failed to note the year in which it was published or by whom, but it appeared to be a census or recording of the promi­nent families of the County.

 

         Within it were two pages devoted to "Dagge of Trewegett" and the information was presented as a family tree or pedigree.  A copy is attached as an appendix to this report.  The most recent date shown in the Dagg section is 1865 and while the earliest marked a baptism in 1569, there were five generations charted before then without dates so the William Dagg of St. Eath shown at the top of the tree was probably born about 1450.

 

         There are a number of very interesting details contained in the chart.  In the first place, William Dagg of St. Eath married Jennet Smith, daughter and heir of John Smith of Trewegget. Presumably William married into an estate of at least modest proportions and it appears to  have remained under the Dagg (Dagge or Dag) name for seven generations until 1642 when Richard (1612-1642) seems to have died without offspring.  However, other tentacles or lines of this family were broadened and extended past the mid-nineteenth century which was probably the time when these old Cornish pedigrees were recorded.

 

         The spelling of Dagg varies from time to time within the pedigree and even within a specific family.  While the Dagge version predominates in the early years, one couple, Stephen and Eliza, in about 1500, named their three sons John Dagge, John Dagg, and William Dag.

 

         It may not be significant but many of the first names re­corded throughout the charts are the same as those found so frequently in Dagg families of Ontario in the 1830s-1870s.  They are William, John, Thomas, Richard and Elizabeth.  As these are among the most common of all names, no firm conclusion should be drawn from this coincidence.  However, Henry, James, George, Walter, Arthur and Jane also appear regularly in the Cornish, Irish and Canadian Daggs, therefore it does not seem to be unrea­sonable to suspect a linkage between them all.

 

         While referring to names it is with some amusement that I note a Diggory Dagg is listed in the pedigree.  As a young pilot in the Royal Air Force in 1940, I was nick-named Digger Dagg by my Irish Commanding Officer.  He stated with a twinkle that I resembled a Digger Dagg of Dublin who was hanged for murdering his mother-in-law.  In  all probability Digger Dagg of Dublin had been named Diggory after a Cornish forebear but whether in fact he was hanged for doing what so many would like to do, I cannot be sure.

 

         While basking in the apparent good fortune and seemingly good blood of some of the Daggs of Cornwall, it is worth noting that a number of them attained positions of moderate standing in medicine, civic administration and the army.  Several held the office of mayor of Bodmin, one of the larger towns of the county. Abel Dagge (c.1690-1750) was a surgeon and coroner of Bristol. Yet another Abel Dagge (1761-18--) was at one time a captain in the British Army and died in Lisbon in 1814 or later.

 

         Although several of the Cornish Dagges/Daggs made names for themselves in the larger communities, the chart from which this information is drawn clearly shows that most of them were born, baptised and buried in St. Kew.  It is a small village in north Cornwall about six miles east of Padstow which is at the mouth of the River Camel and looking north-west toward the port of Cork, 180 miles away in southern Ireland.

 

         "A History of Cornwall" by F.E. Halliday reports that al­though Padstow's main trade during the 16th and 17th centuries was with Brittany, "the ancient intercourse with Ireland remained important, a market for tin, and a source of coarse woolens and timber."  Thus, it seems only natural that some of the young men of St. Kew would have found their way to Cork and other parts of Ireland on business or for adventure.

 

         Support for this premise is also contained in the Dagge of Trewegget pedigree.  Several of the young men listed married women of Cork and one of the County Down in the north.  Although the first such marriage shown was dated 1808, there is little doubt that there would have been other Dagg families in this county whose members strayed across the channel and made homes in Ire­land in earlier times.

 

         Before following the Daggs to Ireland, it seems quite logi­cal to ask, where did the Dagges/Daggs of Cornwall come from?  I may be obliged to leave this interesting challenge to one of my descendants but a little speculation is tempting.

 

         Plenty of proof exists that mankind has lived in the British Isles for many thousands of years and perhaps for as much as a quarter of a million years.  However, for our purpose it might be sufficient to note that during the last 400 years B.C., the Celtic peoples, "an apparent fusion of Mediterranean, Alpine and Nordic stock", were the predominant inhabitants of Britain.

 

         In 55 B.C. the Romans made a brief invasion but returned a century later and remained for nearly 400 years.  They occupied most of modern England as far north as Hadrian's Wall near the Scottish border, mixed to a considerable extent with the Britons and, as Winston Churchill wrote in his History of English Speak­ing Peoples, they produced a "Golden Age for Britain".  However it is of interest to note that in a recently published history of Cornwall by S. Daniell, "The Celtic population of Cornwall was largely left to its own resources and the primitive mode of life of these people was largely continued under Roman rule."

 

         Toward the end of Roman occupation of Britain in about A.D. 450 the Saxons, "a Teutonic tribe of north-central Europe, invad­ed and occupied most of what is now modern England.  They were a tall, fair, warrior people intent on destroying all traces of civilization as well as the Christian faith which the Romans had introduced into Britain."  However, again according to Daniell, the remote west of England was not conquered until the ninth century and the Celtic form of the faith, language and customs survived.

 

         From about A.D. 800 and except for brief respites until the Norman Conquest in 1066, Danes (Vikings) made continual raids on virtually all parts of the British Isles including Ireland and Cornwall.  However, Cornish history makes only limited reference to the Dames and although they made many permanent settlements elsewhere, they do not appear to have done so in Cornwall.

 

         Two years after William the Conqueror defeated the English at Hastings in 1066, the Normans captured Exeter in Devon, and neighbouring Cornwall capitulated.  By 1072 all of England had submitted to the invader and large tracts of land were granted by William to his nobles and prominent supporters.  When these new landowners arrived in Cornwall they founded new towns, built castles and churches, improved and expanded the tin mining and created a degree of prosperity.

 

         The few foregoing paragraphs contain an overly simplified version of English history for approximately 1500 years but they are intended only to show the essential races of people who came to the country and settled during that period and whose blood might have flowed in the Daggs of Cornwall.

 

         So, were these Daggs Celts, Romans, Saxons, Danes or Normans?  In seeking a conclusion it seems reasonable from historical evidence to eliminate the Romans, Saxons and Danes.  This of course leaves us with the Celts and the Normans.

 

         Although the romantic appeal of being descended from the ancient Celts of Cornwall is strong, logic seems to point more convincingly to a Norman background.  A factor supporting the Norman heritage is the name Dagg.  It will be remembered that a reliable authority on names (Reaney) believed it was derived from an old French word "dague", meaning a dagger or one who carries a dagger.

 

         So with very limited material to work with and in fact nothing other than some generalizations from history, I have drawn the tentative conclusion that the Daggs are descendants of the Normans.

 

         And who were the Normans?  According to one history book they were Vikings (Norwegians and Danes) who first invaded "Normandy" in 841.... just a little over 200 years before the Battle of Hastings.  Another piece of information which may be pertinent and is certainly intriguing is contained in a history of the English language titled "Our Marvelous Native Tongue" by Robert Claiborne (1983).  The author states that when the Saxons invaded England in the 5th century A.D., "fifty thousand Britons abandoned their homeland for northwest Gaul, where they settled between the Seine and the Loire."  This region contains Normandy, Brittany and Maine.  Could it be that the Normans who invaded England in 1066 were returning to the land their ancestors left six centuries before?

 

         While there are several definite pieces of evidence showing that a number of Cornish Daggs did indeed go to Ireland, there is a possibility that some of the Irish Daggs stem from Daggs of the English midland and northern counties.

 

         In April 1981, I received an unsolicited letter from "The Knights of Heraldry" of Oakville, Ontario offering for sale  a coat of arms for the name of Dagg.  In making the sales presenta­tion, the letter included the following paragraph:

 

         "The  ancient  name  of Dagg  is  one  of  the  oldest English/Scottish surnames, and we find the first mention of the name in the counties of Worcestershire and Yorkshire.  Robert Dagg was recorded in the year 1275 in Worcestershire, and Georgius Dagg was recorded about the year 1230 in Yorkshire.  Both held estates in these counties.  The name often became Daggett, mean­ing literally the "small" Dagg (i.e. the son of Dagg) .  By 1527 the name had moved northward to the Scottish/English border in what was known as the "Debatable Land", about 30 miles northeast of Carlisle.  Willie Dagg settled in Strathdee in 1527.  The name was among the first North American settlers.  The family coat of arms is silver with a blue stripe at the top on which there are three gold crescents.  The crest is a red eagle displayed. Authority for the Arms is Burkes General Armory."

 

         I cannot vouch for the reliability of the foregoing informa­tion.  My cousin Frank A. Dagg while working in Northumberland, England in 1972 met another Dagg near the Scottish border but they were unable to trace any family relationship or any emigra­tion to Ireland.  However, if these English Daggs did indeed hold estates back in the 13th century, they too were probably of Norman extraction whose families had been given land in return for military support.

 

         While travelling through Southern California in 1981, a random phone call led me to the door of Marguerite (Dagg) Ander­son of Ventura.  We have no firm evidence of recent family rela­tionship but she too was very interested in Dagg history.  A subsequent letter from her included the following:  "Dagg;  we were known as Dague and lived in the Province of Maine, France. Because of religious persecutions, the family emigrated to Can­terbury, England in the early 1600s and from there to Ireland." She does not provide the source of her information but it does seem fair to assume that it is valid.

 

         So evidence that the early English Daggs came from France is now reasonably firm and they appear to have arrived as early as the beginning of the 13th century or sooner, and as late as the early 17th century.  Maine lies directly south of Normandy and both were occupied by the English for extended periods during the Hundred Years War (1337-1453).  Many of the French had accepted their overlords, were loyal to them, abandoned their country when the English were finally driven out and crossed the Channel in large numbers.

 

         The Daggs of Cornwall could have been among these.  Those who supposedly held estates in Yorkshire and Worcestershire obviously came much earlier and those fleeing the religious persecutions appear to have been the most recent.  Family rela­tionships among these various groups of Dagues or Daggs seems unlikely but, almost certainly, our tribe of Daggs must flow from one of these sources.

 

DAGGS IN IRELAND

 

         To set the stage for the arrival of the Daggs in Ireland in the late 17th century perhaps it would be helpful to review very briefly the history of the country up to that time.  As in the case of the larger British Isle, Ireland had been inhabited for thousands of years but again for our purposes we can begin with the arrival of the Celts in the fourth or third century B.C.

 

         Neither the Romans nor the Anglo-Saxons invaded Ireland so it suffered no other major intrusions until the arrival of the Vikings in the ninth century and the Anglo-Normans in the twelfth.  During this prolonged period of immunity from violence the Irish developed a significant social order and educational system.  Ireland became a Christian country with a written lan­guage which in its modern form is known as Gaelic.

 

         In 1171, more than a century after the Norman conquest of England, Henry II landed in Ireland and took control of the entire country.  Thereafter, a steadily developing conflict between the feudal system of the incoming Normans and the tribal organization of the Irish bred centuries of discord and blood­shed.

 

         Successive monarchs gave large tracts of Irish land to the English aristocracy.  In addition, many members of the various English armies which campaigned in Ireland were allocated choice lands in the country as a reward for their services.  The Irish were solidly Roman Catholic but after the Reformation in the 16th century all the English landlords and those who supervised their lands for them would have been Protestant.

 

         It will be remembered that the Reformation began in 1534 when Henry VIII quarreled with the Pope of the legitimacy of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon.  After a brief setback under Queen Mary (1553-1558), Protestantism was strictly enforced under Elizabeth (1558-1603) and this led to the often unwilling conver­sion of virtually all the people of England including those of Cornwall.

 

         Accordingly, in the late 17th century when Daggs first immigrated to Ireland much of the good farmland, probably most of the profitable businesses, and almost certainly all of the paid government positions were held by English Protestants.  So when the Daggs went to Ireland it is almost certain that they too were English Protestants and3in some cases at least, they may have served in the armies of Cromwell or William of Orange.

 

         In discussions with Dicky Dagg during my visit to Tipperary in 1972, he expressed a belief that the original Daggs of Tipper­ary had indeed fought at Limerick (24 miles south-west of Nenagh) in 1690-91.  Similarly, Marguerite (Dagg) Anderson of Ventura, California stated that several Daggs went to Ireland with William of Orange and were given land in counties Tipperary, Limerick and Cork.  Neither of these sources gave any documentary proof for their beliefs, but it does seem quite significant that two such widely separated people should have the same contention.

 

         To compound the subject, Murray Robertson of Scotland in­formed me in 1977 that a Thomas Sidney Charles Dagg (1875-1964) of Dublin stated that, "the Daggs in Ireland are descended from a Cromwellian settler."

 

         There have been a growing number of Daggs in Ireland for about three hundred years and it is most unlikely that they derive from one or two immigrants.  There is proof that several Cornish Daggs made their way to the Emerald Isle and there is a reasonable probability that others were members of William's army and remained after the sieges of Limerick.  I can neither confirm nor refute Sidney Dagg's stand for the Cromwellian settler. Possibly all three sources and perhaps others made contributions to the Daggs of Ireland.

 

         Whatever their origins, there is a dearth of information pertaining to numbers, names, movements or activities of Daggs in Ireland up to the early 1800s.  From the scant evidence avail­able, a few appear to have prospered to a reasonable degree and as mentioned earlier, one was a student of Dublin University from 1714-19.  However, by 1823-24 most of the Tipperary Daggs appear to have been farming tenants holding parcels of land ranging from 1 to 95 acres (an Irish acre is approximately 1.5 English acres).

 

         Murray Robertson compiled and provided me with some very interesting material which he extracted from Tithe Applotment Books (TAB) and Griffiths Valuation Rolls (GVR), held in the public Records Office in Dublin.  First, the following table shows the distribution of Daggs in Ireland by county in the periods 1823-24 and 1852-54.  These figures indicate families, not individuals.

 

DISTRIBUTION TABLE OF DAGG FAMILIES IN  IRELAND

 

                                                                  1823-24                       1852-54

                        COUNTY                       (From TAB)                (From GVR)

                        Tipperary                                  23                                 14

                        Carlow                                       4                                  2

                        Wicklow                                     6                                  5

                        Laois                                          2                                  2

                        Tyrone                                        1                                  -

                        Cork                                           -                                   1

                        Wexford                                     -                                   2

                        Down                                         -                                   1

                        Westmeath                                 -                                   1

                        Kilkenny                                     -                                   2

                                                                       ___                              ___

                        Totals                                      36                                30

 

 

         The most obvious change in these tabulations is the reduc­tion in the number of Dagg families in Tipperary between the first and second recordings.  It was during the intervening years that most of the early Canadian Daggs arrived in Canada and no doubt these migrations were at least partly the cause of the reductions.

 

         A second table lists the Daggs who apparently leased land in Tipperary from various landlords during the period 1823-46.  Most of the first names are the same as those of the early Dagg set­tlers of Upper Canada/Ontario in the 1820s-1840s.  Thomas, John, Richard, James, William and George are encountered in generation after generation as well as in related families of the same generation.

 

TABLE OF DAGGS WHO LEASED LAND IN TIPPERARY

 

YEAR        NAME         LANDLORD              PLACE              PARISH             ACREAGE

 

1823           Thomas         not given                 Lisbuan & Monorow        Kilmore                        18

1823           Thomas         not given                 Lisbuan & Monorow        Kilmore                          8             

1823           John              not given                 Lisbuan & Monorow        Kilmore                        35

1823           Richard          not given                 Ballyphilleys               Kilmore                        95

1824           John              Mrs. Robinson         Ballynaven                 Modreeny                       4

1824           James            Lord Dunalley         Cowbaun                   Modreeny                     12

1824           George          Lord Dunalley         Knocknacree             Modreeny                       1

1824           Thomas         Lord Dunalley         Knocknacree             Modreeny                       2

1824           William          Lord Dunalley         Knocknacree             Modreeny                       8

1824           John              Lord Dunalley         Knocknacree             Modreeny                       8

1824           Thomas         Jas. Willington         Kilurane                     Modreeny                     18

1824           James            Lord Dunalley         Balisteena                  Modreeny                       5

1824           Richard          Lord Dunalley         Balisteena                  Modreeny                     12

1824           George          Lord Dunalley         Town Fields               Modreeny                  part acre

1824           Thomas         H.D. Grady             Kewanstown (?)        Kilbaron                        21

1824/25       Richard          Hy Otway Cave      Gurtagarry & Glenagile     Aghnameadle                10

1824/25       Richard          Hy Otway Cave      Gurtagarry & Glenagile     Aghnameadle                  7                                            1824/25       William          Hy Otway Cave      Goraneotway             Aghnameadle                  7

1826           William          James Otway          Goraneotway             Latteragh                        5

1832           Richard                   ?                   Hymenstown              Athassela & Relickmurry       26

1846           Widow                    ?                   Hymenstown              Athassela & Relickmurry       13  

1834           Richard                   ?                   Templederry              Templederry                 90

 

         Among  numerous other statistical materials provided  by  M. Robertson was a list of Tipperary marriages recorded between 1815 and 1845.  They are:

 

LIST OF  TIPPERARY DAGG MARRIAGES

 

                 1815  --     Jane Dagg - Married Francis Abbot

                 1819  --     Richard Dagg - Married Ellen Mossop

                 1820  --     Richard Dagg - Married Rachel McCutchin

                 1827  --     William Dagg - Married Elizabeth Dagg

                 1845  --     Elizabeth Dagge, daughter of John Dagg, farmer, Knocknacree, Co. Tipperary, married Wm. Browne, farmer, Whitemall, Ballingarry at Modreeny Parish Church.

 

         This short list contains some interesting details such as two Richards marrying in successive years and the spelling of Elizabeth "Dagge".  However, the primary interest is the 1827 marriage of William Dagg and Elizabeth Dagg (now known to have been cousins) .  William and Elizabeth were my great great grandparents and represent the key to our family of Daggs and its roots in Ireland.  Their lives and movements will be reported more fully later but their extensive travels and pioneering  came to an end in Bervie, Kincardine Township, in Bruce County, Ontar­io where they were buried in the Anglican Church Cemetery.  Their gravestone shows that Eliza died in 1855 at age 47 and William in 1864  at  age 68.  Eliza would have been 19 and William  31  when they were married in 1827.

 

         As is generally known, many of the parish records which were sent  to Dublin for safekeeping during the civil war  of  1919-22 were destroyed by fire.  On the other hand those few retained  in the parishes usually survived.  Most church records for  Modreeny Parish  were  sent to Dublin and burned.  Therefore  tracing  our ancestors  is extremely difficult if possible at  all.   However, records of land ownership and leasing do offer some help and  the list  of Daggs leasing land in Tipperary in 1823-24  offers some interesting evidence.

 

         The list shows a William with eight acres, a James with 12 acres and a Richard with 12 acres.  In each case the properties were located in Modreeny parish and the landlord was Lord Dunally.  William, James and Richard are the names of the three Dagg brothers (James may have been a brother-in-law) who settled in Upper Canada before 1840, and although proof is lacking it is well  within  the realm of possibility that these were  the  same young  men.  Great-great-grandfather William would have  been  28 years  old when the 1824 listings were made and it is not  unrea­sonable to imagine how he and his brothers would hear from  other successful emigrants and answer the call to the new world.

 

         There were several reasons for the exodus of large numbers of young Irish families from their homeland in the early part  of the 19th century.  Firstly, most of the land in Ireland was owned by  the  Anglo-Irish aristocracy who in turn divided  and  leased their  holdings.  Protestant yeomen farmers were often  the  pre­ferred tenants as they were considered to be more industrious and stable  than the Roman Catholics.  To encourage land  improvement and continuity of tenancy, leases were granted for "three lives", presumably  meaning  three generations.  However,  there  was  no enforcement  of the law of primogeniture in Ireland  whereby  the entire  estate  of a family must be left to the  oldest  son   so where there were three or four sons in an Irish family, the  land was  often  divided to allocate each son with a  portion  of  the original plot.  As a result many young families had  considerable difficulty in extracting a living from their limited acreage  and saw little future for their own sons.

 

         Another factor which led to overcrowding and unemployment was the end of two decades of war between Britain and France in 1815.  Thousands of young Irishmen who had fought in the British armies were released and returned home only to encounter a serious post-war economic depression.  In addition, the ever-present feuding between the Protestants and Catholics was a reason to emigrate and get away from it all.

 

         In  later years, the great potato famine of 1845-51  created widespread misery, death for over a million Irish people and  the emigration of a million more but most of the Dagg families I have encountered  in my research came to Canada in the  1820s-30s  and therefore escaped before that disaster struck.

 

         Probably the greatest reason for going to North America was the availability of good land which in some cases could be obtained for outright ownership by free grants from the Crown or by purchase on very reasonable terms.

 

 

TIPPERARY IN 1972

 

         During my visit to Tipperary in 1972 with my wife Daphne we sought out a number of Daggs and were informed that there were several  more in the area.  In fact, one woman in a  Nenagh  shop stated  in  her lovely Irish accent that, " The place is  full  of them."

 

         The first Dagg we met was a Mrs. O'Sullivan who with her husband operated a busy pub in Nenagh.  She directed us to Rich­ard John (Dicky) Dagg in the same city.  He was about 70, lived with his wife Christina ("Cissie") and daughter Georgina in a modest home and had recently retired from his own small business as a bottler of stouts, ales and mineral waters.

 

         On the second day we drove north and scoured Borrisokane's graveyard, church records and Kelly's Bar in the Hibernian Hotel for clues but although we found traces of many Daggs including a Michael and Susan, the names of our son and daughter, we found no evidence of great grandfather James who at that time seemed to be the missing link between the old world and the new.

 

         A few miles further on we found the substantial new home  of Lewis  Dagg near Terryglass and overlooking Lough Derg.   He  ap­peared to be a reasonably prosperous farmer, quite hospitable but without much knowledge or interest in his roots.

 

         The following day in company with my cousin Frank A. Dagg and his spouse Lil, we drove about 10 miles southeast to Gurteen House, Latteragh to descend upon William James (Mansie) Dagg, his wife Olive, their daughter - also Olive - and son-in-law John Powell.  We were warmly received, generously plied with coffee and cake and had a long chat -- but, like the others, this family kept no records and could offer no direct help.  Mansie was probably in his mid-seventies and had a heart problem, but his home, farm and family all seemed to be full of vigour and happiness.

 

         In the afternoon we all enjoyed another sumptuous tea and  a very pleasant hour with Mrs. Adam Hodgins, the former Mabel Dagg, then about 70, her daughter Patricia and Miss Maud Dagg,  Mabel's sister.   Their home in Nenagh, named Riverston, was quite  hand­some indeed but the three ladies, though most charming, were unable to assist us in the tracing of our family history.

 

         Later in the early June evening we drove a few miles west to Lissenhall.  According to Murray Robertson, "The name applies to the whole Townland (believed to be 480 acres) containing several small properties, and also to a large Georgian house (unroofed and damaged beyond repair in some of the Irish troubles of 1944). The earliest Dagg connection found is 1815, and the latest, 1890. Local histories make it clear that the house was owned by the Otway family and tenanted by the Carol family for most of this period.

 

         "In 1850 however, Griffiths Valuation Rolls clearly indicate Mrs. Margaret Dagg as the tenant of the house."  We approached this once magnificent mansion down a long private road lined with huge old trees.  Only the stone shell remained, the gardens and shrubs were uncared for,  and there was no sign of life. Presumably the land was being farmed but by whom we did not learn.

 

         Both Dicky and Mansie Dagg expressed beliefs that Daggs once owned Lissenhall, lived in it for several generations but for reasons unknown were dispossessed of it about 1850.  Thereafter, as in the case of Margaret, widow of a John Dagg, they appear to have been tenants.  Dicky Dagg stated that both his father Rich­ard and grandfather Thomas, who married Anne Smethwick in 1843, were born in Lissenhall.  Thomas appears to have been a son of the aforementioned John and Margaret.

 

         As we returned to our motel in Nenagh for what we thought was to be a quiet last night in Tipperary, we found that news of our presence in the community had spread.  About 9:00 p.m. a most pleasant and talkative reporter from the local newspaper dropped in to interview we visitors from the new world and before he left another Dagg named Leslie, with his lady friend, appeared.  He was about 28, quite charming, well dressed, had a winning Irish smile and worked for a Canadian mining company operating nearby.

 

         This was the final episode of three very interesting days during which we met nothing but charming people.  Unfortunately,  none knew anything of the Daggs who emigrated to Canada in the 1820’s –1840’s. In addition, I had not at that time been contacted by M.  Robertson and of course did not have the benefits of his many annual visits to Ireland which I later received.  As a result, I did not visit the Modreeny area (approximately 8-10 miles north­east of Nenagh) which he believed and his records showed to  have been the most probable location from which our family came.  Now, in  1990, I have convincing evidence that he was absolutely  cor­rect.

 

TRAVEL TO CANADA

 

         There can be no doubt that several Dagg families made the long and often perilous journey from Ireland to Canada in the 1820-1840 period.  Accordingly, a brief description of trans-Atlantic travel and subsequent movement inland to the region chosen for settlement does seem to be a required part of this saga.

 

         Again from Kenneth Neill's History of the Irish People, he states, "Going to America in the middle of the nineteenth century was no easy matter.  Only a handful of steamships plied the Atlantic during the 1840s and ‘50s.  The vast majority of emigrants traveled aboard sailing ships which took between four and ten weeks to make the crossing.  There was a wide variety of ships ranging from sleek, smooth-riding packets to clumsy, ill-fitted boats but whatever the quality of the vessel, rough seas could make any passage unpleasant.

 

         "The average cost for cabin and provisions on a packet was £15 per person.  Since this represented several years wages for the ordinary labourer, most emigrants had no choice but to travel in steerage aboard the poorer class vessels.  There, for £4-5 the traveler was given a 5 1/2 by 2 foot berth -- and little else."

 

         Evidently much depended on the quality of the captain and crew but many ships sailed grossly overloaded and this condition exaggerated the ever-present threat of disease.  Cholera epidemics were not uncommon and one ship is reported to have lost 108 of 440 passengers before landing in Quebec in 1847.  Then 100 more died in quarantine after landing.

 

         However, Neill goes on to state:  "An Atlantic crossing could have its brighter moments.  Some ships made the voyage without incident, such as the Cultivator which brought in 945 passengers from Liverpool in 1854 with only a single fatality. Nevertheless, the risks were very real and in 1847 almost one in six of those who traveled from the British Isles to North America died as a result of shipwreck or disease."

 

TRAVEL IN CANADA

 

         It will be difficult to determine just how the various Daggs traveled.  Information regarding the many ships which brought immigrants to Canada in those years and lists of the passengers are very scarce. Few were kept.  However, judging from the fact that many of the Tipperary Daggs were tenants who appear from the records to have leased land on something more than a short term basis and were not in the Irish labourer or cottier class, they may well have been able to afford something better than the dreaded steerage.  In any case, a goodly number did survive the passage and made their way to Upper Canada.

 

         Travel to the interior of the continent in the 1820s-1850s was accomplished mainly by boat along the waterways followed for centuries by the native Indians and later by the explorers and fur traders.  There were some trails where one might walk or travel by horseback but roads suitable for a wagon or carriage of any kind were of the very roughest standard except perhaps within short distances of established communities.

 

         By 1817 a road from Montreal to York (Toronto), a distance of 360 miles, was opened.   It was quite suitable for stage sleighs in winter when the pools of water and mud were frozen and covered with snow but in other seasons most overland travel was by horseback.  In the book "Pioneer Travel in Upper Canada" by Edwin C. Guillet, first published in 1933, the author states that around 1830 "early settlers are known to have walked from Kingston to York, a distance of 180 miles, and arrived a day ahead of the stage coach."

 

         Until the settlers cleared it, the land was almost entirely covered by dense forests and although early road builders cut the trees down along the prescribed routes, the roads wound their way through the stumps, over the humps and hollows and across numer­ous streams, many of which were not bridged.  The great distances involved, the lack of funds and a slow-growing population were no doubt reasons for the continuation of these conditions in Upper Canada until after the middle of the nineteenth century.

 

         Railways were first introduced in Canada for very short hauls in the 1830s but even by 1850 the total length of all such lines amounted only to 66 miles.  However, in 1856 the Grand Trunk Railway completed a through train service between Montreal and Toronto.  In 1858 it was extended to London and in 1859 to Sarnia.  Because of this rather tardy arrival of railways and the generally horrible condition of the roads, travel by river and lake remained preferable throughout most of the 1820-1850 period with which we are concerned.

 

         Regarding water travel, the canoe began to give way to the bateau about 1783.  The bateau varied in design but essentially it was a flat bottomed craft 30-40 feet long, 5-11 feet wide at the centre and with sides about 4 feet high.   It was much stronger than even the biggest canoes and its carrying capacity much greater.

 

         About 1809 the Durham boat was introduced in the St. Lawrence waters and by 1824 was in extensive use.  It was a flat bottomed barge, 80-90 feet long, 9-10 feet wide with a capacity of up to 35 tons going down stream and about 8 tons up stream. Propulsion was by sail and the single mast was so hinged that it could be lowered readily when going through canals or under bridges.  In adverse winds or heavy currents these boats were "poled" along by crewmen using 20 foot poles of ash or hickory.

 

         The bateau and Durham boats remained in service for many years on the rivers and along the shores of the bigger lakes but the growing use of schooners on Lakes Ontario and Erie after the War of 1812 and the introduction of steamships in 1816-17 gradu­ally ended the use of these craft for open water transportation.

 

         The systems of rivers and lakes which converge on Montreal after flowing hundreds of miles from the western hinterland contain numerous waterfalls and rapids.  Even for the light and maneuverable canoe, many of the obstructions were too swift and precipitous for upstream travel and some for downstream.  The back-breaking portages around these impassable stretches were an accepted part of water travel but inevitably canals became a necessity.

 

         In  1824 the Lachine rapids of the St. Lawrence  river  just upstream from Montreal1 were bypassed by the 10-mile-long Lachine Canal.   This was the first major step toward  easier  navigation into the upper St. Lawrence and Ottawa River valleys.

 

         The original Welland Canal, the first of four, bypassing Niagara Falls and providing navigation between Lakes Ontario and Erie, was opened in 1829.  However, the difficulties of reaching Lake Ontario and the need for several long and arduous portages to get there remained until 1834 when the first Ottawa River canal system between Montreal and Ottawa  (Bytown) was finally completed.  This waterway led to the Rideau Canal system between Ottawa and Kingston which had been finished in 1832.  Until completion of the canals along the more direct St. Lawrence River route between Montreal and Kingston in 1855, the Ottawa River­ Rideau Canal system became the principal route to Lake Ontario.

 

         The majority of ships bringing immigrants to Canada appear to have terminated their voyages in Quebec City rather than in Montreal, 150 miles up river.  However, this first leg of inland travel was relatively easy, there being no serious obstacles to river travel.  Also, the best road in all Canada existed between these two cities.

 

         Settlers travelling without their families or with only light baggage might have walked or ridden a horse all the way from Montreal to Toronto and on to a final destination.  Some might have traveled by coach and suffered the perils of a bone-shaking road trip but probably most would have found it desirable to arrange passage by bateau or barge through the river and canal system most suitable at the time of their arrival.

 

         Those  Daggs going to the Ottawa Valley would have  included great-great-grandfather  William (1796-1864), his wife  Elizabeth and  their  young family.  They now appear to  have  entered  the region  about  1837-38  and probably traveled  from Montreal  to Bytown by river craft - thence overland to their chosen  destina­tion.

 

         Other Dagg families going to the London region might well have taken river boats up the Ottawa to Bytown and through the Rideau Canal to Kingston before boarding bigger lake ships for the rest of the journey to Port Stanley or Port Talbot on Lake Erie.  From there it was a relatively short overland trip to the community of their choice.

 

         Finally, others who had settled originally in the London area before moving north to Bruce County in the early 1850s, probably traveled by horse and wagon, or oxen and wagon, up the Canada Company's London-Goderich road to its northern terminus before proceeding the final 40 miles over some extremely rough conditions, or going by ship from Goderich to Kincardine -- then called Penetangore.

 

 

THE CANADA TO WHICH THEY CAME

 

         It may be helpful to present a brief outline of the key events in the history of Canada which preceded the arrival of the Daggs in this country and which ensued shortly thereafter.

 

         Following victories by the British over the French in 1758 and 1759 at Louisberg, Fort Frontenac and Quebec, the Treaty of Paris of 1763 confirmed the transfer of virtually all French lands in North America to the British.  These included most of what is now Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, P .E.I. and Newfoundland, although most of the lands now comprising Ontario were unsettled and classified as Indian Territories.

 

After the American War of Independence (1775-83) the second Treaty of Paris of 1783 set the boundaries between the new United States of America and the British North America colonies of that time. They were essentially the same as the boundaries existing today from the Bay of Fundy to Lake Superior. The War of 1812-14 brought no significant change to them.

 

The Constitutional Act of 1791 divided the vast area known as Quebec into Upper and Lower Canada, the Ottawa River being the main boundary between them. The settlement of about 6,000 United Empire Loyalists in what became Upper Canada was a major factor leading to the division.

 

By the Act of Union of 1840 and for political reasons the two colonies were again united into the Province of Canada with one government but with the capital alternating at various times and for various reasons between Kingston, Toronto, Montreal, Quebec City and Ottawa. Also, the areas previously named Upper and Lower Canada became known as Canada West and Canada East. This arrangement appears to have created more problems than it solved and contributed to the eventual passage of the British North America Act in 1867 and the proclamation of the new self governing country of Canada.

 

Accordingly, most of the early Dagg settlers arrived when Upper and Lower Canada were separate colonies with capitals in Toronto and Quebec City.

 

FIRST DAGGS IN CANADA

 

At least one Dagg and perhaps more served in Canada with the British forces during the War of 1812-14 but those who did, appear to have returned to Ireland and received their discharge after the final defeat of Napoleon and the French at Waterloo in 1815. However, their two or three year exposure to Canada with its vast expanses of good land available at very low prices, as well as the freedoms enjoyed by all citizens would have made a most favourable impression on these young men and they no doubt would have reported enthusiastically to their families and friends in their home communities on return. Thus, in addition to the reasons to emigrate as given earlier in this narrative, these direct observations would have given added impetus for Dagg families and others to abandon their roots of several generations and strike out for a somewhat uncertain but promising new life.

 

Now, as I write this in early 1992, and as a result of the best information I have been able to assemble from early church records, national and provincial archives, the Genealogical Library of the Mormons in Salt Lake City, census records for the early to mid-1800s and several other helpful and reliable contacts, I have concluded that there were at least twelve Daggs who emigrated from Modreeny Parish in Tipperary County in Ireland to Canada in the period 1818-1840. Most if not all were married and brought several children with them, in all probability were the progeny of two or three sets of related parents and therefore had a common relationship of being brothers, sisters or cousins. All were Protestants (Anglicans) from a predominantly Roman Catholic country.

 

Although some of these early Daggs stopped in Montreal or other centres for a few years to work and probably to save money before moving on, all appear to have chosen one of two specific regions for their eventual settlement. These were the Ottawa River Valley and the area north of London.

 

As we will see, most of those who chose the Ottawa region settled in Lanark and Carleton Counties although two opted for the Shawville area in Clarendon Township on the Quebec side of the river. This was and still is a predominantly English speaking community.

 

Most of those who went to the London region appear to have found land in the Townships of Biddulph or London and adjacent to the towns of Arva, Birr, Lucan and Clandeboye. This was reported to have been excellent farm land, recently surveyed and opened for purchase at fair prices by the Canada Company.

 

So let us now identify each of these twelve Daggs, report any details available such as year of birth and death, his or her year of arrival in Canada, locality of settlement, an estimate of relationship with the others, names of wives, husbands and children, and any other available and pertinent information.

 

1.      William Dagg (1796-1864) and Elizabeth Dagg (1808-1855)

&   2.

There is adequate proof that this William and Elizabeth were cousins, married in Tipperary in 1827 and immigrated to Canada in 1837 with three and possibly four children. Their land acquisitions and sales in Pakenham Township near Ottawa, the growth of their family and their later internal migration to Bruce County in 1852 are firmly established. However, as the story of this couple and their progeny is the basic purpose of this report, it will be described in considerable detail in a later chapter.

 

3.       James Dagg (1797-1842)

 

This James with his wife Anne Ardell and several children emigrated from Tipperary in 1837-38, located in Ernesttown, near Kingston, Ontario for a few years before moving on to Biddulph Township north of London where James was killed in an accident while helping to build a house for a neighbour, Henry Hodgins, a recent arrival from Tipperary. James is known to have been a brother of either William or Elizabeth (see 1 & 2 above) and, therefore, the children of both families were first cousins.  Also as there is considerable information available regarding James and Anne's progeny, their story will be reported more fully in a later chapter.

 

4.       Jane (Dagg) Abbott

 

Proof is now in hand that a Jane Dagg, daughter of a Richard and Esther Dagg, was married to Francis Abbott in Tipperary in 1815. Assuming that Jane was between 18 and 25 years old at the time, she would have been born between 1790 and 1797 and could have been a sister of the William and/or James mentioned in the preceding paragraphs.

 

Francis, Jane and their children made the journey to Canada about 1822 and, along with several other Tipperary immigrants, remained and worked in Montreal for several years before moving on to Nepean Township in Carleton County and near Ottawa in 1828. The oldest son Thomas, then about 20, was a sponsor at the baptism of Richard and Eliza Dagg's daughter Elizabeth in the parish of March in 1837. Further evidence shows that although Francis, Jane and most of their family remained in the Ottawa region, Thomas moved west to Biddulph in 1840 and acquired Lot 20, Concession 4 from the Canada Company. It was close to the established homes of other Tipperary immigrants including James Dagg (1797-1842) and a Richard Dagg (1809-1873) who may well have been his uncles. However the latter stages of Jane (Dagg) Abbott's life are not known to me at this time.

 

5.       James Dagg

 

Little is known about this James either before or after his well documented acquisition of a parcel of land in London Township in 1836. For the sum of 45 pounds and ten shillings paid to a William Tweedy for improvements previously made on the south half of Lot 14, Concession 11 of London Township (25 acres), James Dagg was "located" on the property by Colonel Thomas Talbot, Superintendent. His relationship to other Daggs who came to Canada in the 1820s and 1830s has yet to be determined but he could have been the James Dagg who was granted a licence to operate a tavern in Middlesex County in 1847 & '48 and he could have been a brother of any of the other early Dagg settlers listed here except the other James (1797-1842).

 

6.       Richard Dagg (1809-1873)

 

This Richard Dagg, his wife, the former Elizabeth Neil, and two of their children are buried under an imposing gravestone in St. James Anglican Church Cemetery in the small community of Clandeboye just about two or three miles north of Lucan in Biddulph Township. The inscriptions show that Richard died at 64 in 1873 and Elizabeth at 81 in 1890. So they were both born in 1809, plus or minus one year. Richard is listed in Canada Company records as the holder of the original deed for Lot 18, Conc. 4 in the Township of Biddulph and this suggests that he would have acquired it in the late 1830s or very early 1840s.

 

Census records for 1851, 1861 and 1871 show that this Richard and Elizabeth had eleven children in all. Nine are listed in the 1851 census and two new names appear in the 1861 records. Only two of the eleven were boys; James was born in 1842 and Francis in 1849. James died in 1862 and a sister Susan (Jones) Dagg died in 1871 at age 34. Both are buried with their parents in Clandeboye.

 

There is at least a strong probability that this Richard was a brother of old William and/or old James. Some evidence of this is derived from a letter written in 1925 by my great uncle James G. Dagg (1860-1930) to a John Dagg in Tipperary. In it James G. stated; "My father's father's name was James and he had a brother named Richard" -- who settled in Biddulph.

 

In fact James G.'s father's father (grandfather) was William (1796-1864) but James G.'s step father (also a William) was the son of old James (1797-1842) and very probably it was this James that he was referring to and who he said had a brother Richard who settled in Biddulph.

 

It is important to note that James G. Dagg's father died about two months before he was born, his grandfather William died four years after he was born and his stepfather's father James died in 1842, i.e., 18 years before he was born, so it is understandable that there was some confusion in young James G.'s mind about his true father and grandfather. However, this is strong evidence that either old William and/or old James had a brother Richard in Biddulph and almost certainly he would have been the one we are referring to here.

 

7.       Richard Dagg of Fitzroy Township

 

A letter received from Ottawa Diocese of the Anglican Church reports the baptism of two daughters, Ellen Jane and Elizabeth, of Richard and Eliza Dagg in 1835 and '37 respectively. Sponsors for the second event include Thomas Abbott, mentioned in Jane (Dagg) Abbott's story (#4 above), and "Betty" Dagg. In both reports the parents are listed as Richard and Eliza Dagg of Fitzroy Township which lies alongside Pakenham Township in which old William Dagg and his wife Elizabeth lived from about 1837 to 1852. So the "Betty" Dagg listed as a sponsor was almost certainly William's wife Elizabeth and a close relationship between her and the parents is suggested by this event.  However, the subsequent movements of this Richard and Eliza Dagg of Fitzroy Township have not been traced at this time and the names of the children baptized in 1835 and '37 do not match those of several other Richard and Elizabeth Daggs of Biddulph.

 

8.       Thomas Dagg (C1792-1847)

 

There are two Thomas Daggs listed among those who leased land in Modreeny Parish, County Tipperary in 1824 (see page 15 of this narrative) and the Thomas we are concerned with here was probably one of them. He is known to have obtained a lease from the Canada Company dated Dec. 9th, 1837 and in May 1844 he was granted the deed of ownership to Lot 4, Conc. 5 of Huntley Township in Carleton County - probably the same property that he had leased.

 

Thomas appears to have died late in 1847 because by his will his property was left to his sons John and Richard on 5 Jan. 1848. The 1851 census for Huntley Twp. lists Thomas Dagg's widow Susan 57, and three sons John 24, Richard 22 and Thomas 19. There is other evidence that Thomas, the father, came to Canada in 1837, possibly at the same time and on the same ship as old William and old James. So although the three of them as well as the Richard (1809-1873) of Biddulph could have been brothers, documentary proof is still lacking.

 

9.       George Dagg (1781-1847)

 

This George Dagg might well have been the forerunner of all Daggs to the London, Ontario region. I discovered his name in 1979 in The London Public Library Cemetery Records for St. John's Anglican Cemetery in Arva, a few miles north of London. The listing showed a George Dagg who died on Sept. 15,1847, age 66 and buried in Plot Al 61. In the same plot was his wife Jane who died Feb. 18,1878, age 89.

 

Quoting from the History of the County of Middlesex, it states: "Richard Talbot, in 1818 with sixty other Irishmen came out on the ship Brunswick and settled in London Township." Richard Talbot was a relative of the Colonel Thomas Talbot previously mentioned.

 

In response to an appeal to the National Archives in 1983, I received two lists of "intended emigrants" compiled in 1817 and evidently obtained by our Canadian Archives from the British Colonial Office. The copies received were obviously made from reproductions rather than originals and they are only partially legible, thus some of the preamble, the conditions of agreement, as well as some of the names cannot be interpreted. However, two Daggs appear on each list.

 

The preamble to the first list appears to be "A Petition of Protestant farmers proposing to emigrate from the counties of  ? and  ? in   November, 1817." Names of the heads of families, their occupation, the number in each family and remarks are shown. A Thomas Dagg, farmer, with a family of seven and a James Dagg, farmer, with a family of thirteen are listed. Remarks are not legible. There is no proof that these families did emigrate or if they did whether they went to the Ottawa Valley, the London area or elsewhere, but more about them may turn up in the future.

 

The second list offers more interest. The preamble appears to read: "We the undersigned heads of families, professing the Protestant religion and wishing to proceed as settlers to Upper Canada in British North America under the care and direction of Richard Talbot provided he presents us grants of land and free passage from Government. We also promise not to leave the British settlements without consent of the Governor in writing first hand and obtained." 

 

This is a much smaller list containing 71 families most of whom had only one to three children, if any.  Also, the occupations were more diversified although the majority were still farmers. These factors suggest a selection of younger men and women more able to endure the rigors of travel and early settlement.  Number 26 among the names listed is a George Dagg, farmer, with a wife and one daughter. Number 50 is a John Dagg, farmer, with a wife, one son and one daughter. Obviously this is the group, later reduced to 60 families, which sailed on the Brunswick and, as the National Archives has now reported, landed in Quebec City from Cork on July 10,1818 and settled in London Township.

 

The George Dagg mentioned probably was the George who died at age 66 in 1847 and is buried in Arva. He would have been 37 in 1818. The John Dagg listed cannot be placed.

 

10.         George Dagg (1794-C1860)   and

11.         John Dagg (1796-1870)

 

Thanks to Cousins Frank A. Dagg and Marjorie (Dagg) Donaghy now of Vancouver, I obtained considerable evidence of two Daggs, George and John, who settled in the Shawville area of Clarendon County on the Quebec side of the Ottawa River about 40 miles west of Ottawa in 1822 and 1850 respectively. This information was published in the Shawville Equity newspaper in 1962.

 

It stated that George was born in Ireland in 1794, came to Canada in 1822 and was granted 200 acres of land for past military services. As George would have been 21 years old in 1815, he could well have served with British forces in Europe against the French or in the War of 1812-14 in Canada. His wife's name was not given but she evidently died before the 1851 census after producing seven children. They were: William born 1832, George 1834, Caroline 1835, Charles 1838, John 1840, Robert 1843, and Isaac 1845.  The Equity report went on to state that John Dagg, 1796, "probably a brother of George, came to Canada in 1850. He was born in Tipperary and was married there to Jane Jones, born in 1799." Their nine children were; Sarah, John, Anne, Bessie 1824, Charles 1826, Jane 1832, Thomas 1834, Richard 1836, and George 1840. Considerable detail was provided regarding the marriages and offspring of this family as well as those of their children but again even though a close relationship with these other old Daggs is probable, proof is lacking at this time.

 

12.        John Dagg (1826-1907) of Navan

 

Finally, and while in the Ottawa valley, we find one more Dagg family which perhaps came to Canada a few years after those reported above but who can certainly be classified as early migrants. According to the late Marguerite (Dagg) Anderson, formerly of Ventura, California and Edmund, Oklahoma, five Dagg brothers came to Canada early in the 19th century and farmed for a number of years in the Navan area of Gloucester Township, about 10 miles east of Ottawa before four of them moved on to the United States and went their various ways. Marguerite (1906-1990) was a granddaughter of yet another John Dagg (1826-1907), the brother who remained in Navan and married Ellen Jane Wall (1833- 1920) who was born in England. They produced fifteen children, three of whom died at very tender ages although most of the remaining twelve lived well into their 60s and 70s.

 

Even Marguerite knew very little of most of the members of this family except the dates of their births and deaths, but the sixth was Jeremiah Dagg (1863-1929) who was a member of the military force sent west to Saskatchewan in 1885 to put down the Riel Rebellion. According to Marguerite, he was awarded the Northwest Mounted Police medal for his services, settled in Winnipeg, married Mary Olga Ausk and produced a family of ten. In addition to Marguerite they were Maude Jane (Dagg) McCreery, May Helen (Dagg) Rankin, Lydia Dagg, Ruth (Dagg) Mulligan, Roy Dagg who married Annie Knight and raised six children including Roy Jr., Frederick and Merril, Albert Edward (Pud) Dagg (no children), Dorothy (Dagg) Jardine, Chauncey who married Elva Angus and had one son Jerry, and Frances G. Dagg who married Francis Allen and had two sons Brock and Kent.

 

Although there is a definite facial resemblance between Marguerite (Dagg) Anderson and some of my cousins, I know of no direct relationship with her family.  Of course, as most, if not all, of the Canadian Daggs came from Tipperary, it is not unlikely that they were indeed related about 150 to 200 years ago.

 

Before returning to the known travels and activities of William Dagg (1796-1864) and his family, I think it is of interest and timely to mention the frequent associations between the early Daggs and the Hodgins. This inter-family tie prevailed in Ireland, in the Ottawa Valley and in the region north of London, Ontario. In some of Murray Robertson's lists and charts of Tipperary Daggs we find several Hodgins, men and women, marrying Daggs. For example, John Dagg of Lissenhall married Margaret Hodgins in 1812. When in Nenagh in 1972, we met the former Mabel Dagg who had married Adam Hodgins. The list of Shawville Daggs shows no less than 12 marriages between the two families in three generations.

 

In the area north of London, Ontario, particularly in Biddulph township where many Daggs lived in early times, there were even greater numbers of Hodgins. The James Dagg who was killed in 1842 was helping to build a house for a Henry Hodgins. The History of the County of Middlesex states: "Colonel James Hodgins came with his family from Tipperary in 1832 to Biddulph where he was the first settler." He was an agent for The Canada Company for a number of years and therefore would have been active in settling the Huron Tract which lay north of Middlesex County and south of Bruce County, and which until 1862 included the Township of Biddulph.

 

Accordingly, Colonel Hodgins could have been instrumental in persuading some of the first Dagg settlers as well as others to cross an ocean and half a continent to Biddulph's rich farmland. There is a large and prominent cairn in the Clandeboye churchyard which was erected in 1932 by descendants of James Hodgins to commemorate his role in the settlement of the area and indeed there are many of his descendants there.

 

When I was scouring the Lucan-Clandeboye community for Daggs in 1979 and knowing something of the past close ties between the Hodgins and Daggs, I called on Wilson and Austin Hodgins - both prosperous farmers and prominent in local affairs. Wilson gave me a copy of an early map of the County of Middlesex showing counties, towns, concession lines, lot numbers, etc. He also sold me a copy of a history of Biddulph, the title of which is "Sure An' This Is Biddulph" by Jennie Raycraft Lewis. It is of considerable interest and value to me.

 

Now in early 1992, I have been receiving for the past year a wealth of material about Dagg pioneers from a Clinton M. Thompson of London, Ontario whose grandfather was Henry Castle Hodgins. He in turn was the son of Anne (Ardell)(Dagg) Hodgins, the widow of the James Dagg who was killed in the house building accident of 1842, and her second husband John Hodgins. So the association continues.

 

WILLIAM DAGG (1796-1864)

 

         The first firm evidence available to me regarding great-great-grandfather William was his marriage to Elizabeth Dagg in 1827 in Tipperary. This was provided by A. Murray Robertson (previously mentioned) and obtained from an Index to Marriage Licence Bonds for the Diocese of Killaloe which contains Tipperary. The birth places of William and Elizabeth are not known although they were very probably in the Modreeny area of north-east Tipperary and about nine miles north-east of Nenagh. The years of their birth have been established from the dates inscribed on their gravestone located in the Anglican Church Cemetery in Bervie, Bruce County, Ontario. The inscriptions are:

 

Wm. Dagg - Died June 17,1864; Aged 68 years

Eliza Dagg - Died Feb. 26,1855; Aged 47 years

 

         A record of some Irish births, christenings, marriages and deaths for the period 1827-1866 found in the Mormon/Latter Day Saints (L.D.S.) Genealogical Library in Salt Lake City in 1987 provided the christening dates for William and Elizabeth's first four children (births were seldom reported). They were:

 

                        Richard Dagg                -                                    1828         in Modreeny Parish

                        James Dagg                  -           Feb. 7,               1830                     "                             

                        Thomas Dagg               -           Oct.14,              1832                     "     

                        Ellen Dagg                    -           Feb.18,              1835                     "

 

         In addition, a copy of a Parish Register for Modreeny, also found in the L.D.S. Library, lists baptisms for 1827-1840 and marriages for 1827-1845. This contained essentially the same information as given in the preceding paragraph but also some additions. The date of Richard's baptism was given as Jan. 13, 1828 and KILLURANE was listed as the home town or community of the parents. William and Eliza evidently moved between 1828 and 1830 because their residence for the next three baptisms was given as BALLYSTEENA. In all cases William was listed as a "farmer" and both parents' names were given.

 

         Although there is no further report of Ellen who may have died as a child in Ireland, on the Atlantic crossing or soon after the family arrived in Canada, the three boys and their ages tally accurately with subsequent information available about them.  This proved that William, Eliza and the Irish-born members of their family remained in Ireland until 1835 or later.

 

         Until recently, the year in which William Dagg and family moved to Canada and the region in which they first settled were a complete mystery to me. Any family lore passed along always suggested that our Daggs had first gone to the region just north of London, Ontario before moving on to Bruce County in 1852. Efforts to confirm this were never successful despite the fact that many Daggs did indeed settle in the London/Lucan area, particularly in the Township of Biddulph.

 

         About 1985-86, thanks to my cousin Frank A. Dagg, I received a copy of extracts from the thesis of B.S. Elliott of Carleton University in Ottawa on the subject of "North Tipperary Protestants in the Canadas - 1815-1880". Elliott's study was later published in 1988 as a book titled "Irish Migrants in the Canadas". It has provided a valuable addition for my research.

 

         In his description of the early settlement of Kincardine Township in Bruce County in the early 1850s, he stated, "William Dagg who came from Pakenham was an uncle of the Daggs who moved up from Biddulph; both had emigrated from Ballysteena, Modreeny in the 1830s." The town of Pakenham and the township of the same name are in the northern part of Lanark County in the Ottawa Valley and as noted earlier, several Dagg families settled in the Valley in the 1820-1850 period. Obtaining clear evidence that Elliott had his facts correct and had written about the William (1796-1864) of my search was not easy.

 

         During a visit to Salt Lake City in 1987 a search of the 1851-52 census for Pakenham Township did indeed list a W. Dagg and E. Dagg aged 45 and 40 respectively. The William and Eliza of my interest would have been 55 and 43 in 1851 so there was considerable doubt that this was the couple I was searching for. However, despite the fact that the handwriting on the census was far from clear and only one initial was given for an additional ten young Daggs (ages ranging from 23 to 1 year) all presumably living in the same one-storey log house, the initials which were legible and the ages reported gave some basis to believe that here was great-great-grandfather William (1796-1864), his wife Eliza, their eldest son Richard (1827-1911) and his wife Elizabeth (Collins) Dagg with their first two children aged two and one, as well as six other young Daggs, all or most of whom were William and Eliza's other boys and girls. But the ages given for this William and Eliza were well off the mark for my great-great-grandparents, so the evidence was inconclusive.

 

         During the same visit to the L.D.S. Library, I found Pakenham Township property records which listed a William Dagg as the purchaser of 50 acres of land in 1842 for £45 and the seller of the same property in 1854 for £7. (No wonder we are poor!)  In the same microfilm reel, a William Dagg was listed as having bought another 100 acre property in March 1852 for £60 and selling it in 1855 for the same amount.

 

         The difficulty in relating great-great-grandfather William with these transactions was that solid evidence was already at hand to show that our William had purchased land and settled in Kincardine Township in June 1852. So why would he hold land in Pakenham Township until 1854-55? Was it because he couldn't sell it or did he plan to return if his adventures in Bruce County did not work to his liking? Or was this our particular William?

 

         In an effort to resolve these uncertainties, I visited Ottawa, the Ottawa Valley and Toronto in October 1989 and I did indeed find positive evidence that the William and Elizabeth of Pakenham were my great-great-grandparents.

 

         My first call was to the Land Registry Office for North Lanark County (including Pakenham Township) in Almonte. There I examined the deeds of purchase and sale of the two properties formerly held by a William Dagg. The signature of William Dagg was identical to the signature inscribed on documents prepared for other transactions in Bruce County in later years. Even more convincing was the wording or identification of the person selling the properties. He was described as: "William Dagg of the Township of Kincardine in the County of Bruce and Province of Canada, Yeoman." These deeds or memorials therefore proved that William Dagg (1796-1864) and his family had indeed lived in Pakenham Township from 1842-1852. The gap between the baptism of William and Eliza's daughter Ellen in 1835 in Tipperary to William's acquisition of land in Pakenham in 1842 had been reduced to seven years. But the question remained, when in that interval did they come to Canada?

 

         After a couple of days in the national Archives in Ottawa, a visit to the Anglican Church Diocese for the Ottawa area and several hours in the Ottawa Public Library, I made my way to Toronto, its Ontario Archives and the Ontario Genealogical Society (OGS) Library in North York Centre. There again I was rewarded with some vital information.

 

         Although I gleaned several pieces of information in the Archives, the O.G.S. Library yielded the most important material. This was the 1842 census for Lanark County which of course included Pakenham Township. I had located a copy of this census on micro4ilm in the L.D.S. Library in Salt Lake City in January 1989 but it was illegible in many parts and I found no trace of a William Dagg. But he was there and the O.G.S. Library copy showed the name and several associated statistics. Among these were:

 

 

1.         The record began with the name "William Dagg, yeoman, Lot 1, Concession 5 (Township of Pakenham), proprietor, entitled to vote." No age was given nor was William's wife Elizabeth mentioned.

2.         Under the heading "Number of natives of Ireland belonging to the family", the answer was "five". These would have been the parents and the three boys who were baptised in Tipperary in 1828,1830 and 1832. As mentioned before, Ellen, baptised in Tipperary in 1835, appears to have died between 1835 and 1842.

3.         Under the heading "Number of natives of Canada in the family", only "one" was reported. This would have been John who, according to the Anglican Church records for Pakenham as provided by the Diocese of Ottawa, was born on August 18, 1841 and baptised at St. George's Church in the town of Clayton in Ramsay Township just a few miles south of Pakenham.

4.         The fourth point of particular interest was under the heading, "Number of years each person has been in Canada when not native thereof". The answer was "four". There is evidence that part of the so-called 1842 census was taken in 1841 so the answer "four" enables us to conclude that William Dagg, his wife Elizabeth and their three eldest boys had been in Canada since 1837 or '38. So they very probably remained in Tipperary until that time.

 

         The problem of the age differentials as reported in the 1851 census remain unresolved. However, when I asked an archivist in the genealogical section of the Public Archives of Canada for his opinion on the subject, he stated that such errors were not uncommon. Very often, he said, when the census taker arrived at a farmhouse, the father and perhaps the mother too would be in the fields, the woods or away for one reason or another, thus the oldest family member in the house would provide the answers to the questions as well as he or she could! The census taker was not about to return. So some guesswork was involved.

 

         The archivist for the Anglican Diocese of Ottawa also provided several other very useful pieces of information. They were:

 

1.         George Dagg, son of William and "Betty" Dagg, was born 24 June 1839, and baptized on 18 August 1839 in Carleton Place. (There is no further record of this George so, like Ellen, he appears to have died as a child.) However, this is added evidence that William and his family were in Lanark County in 1839.

 

2.         William, son of William and Elizabeth Dagg, born March 4,1848, and baptized on 30 January 1849 at McMunn's Schoolhouse in Ramsay Township (Ramsay Township is immediately south of Pakenham and William's property was next to the boundary line). This William appears to have been the last of nine children born to William (1796-1864) and his wife Elizabeth. He was one of two young Williams of the same generation and is known to have lived in the Bervie area in 1864-67 and probably from 1852-67 or later.

 

3.         Finally, the Anglican Church archivist listed the births and baptisms of two children, Ellen Jane and Elizabeth in 1835 and 1837 respectively. The parents were a Richard and Eliza Dagg of Fitzroy Township, immediately east of Pakenham. Of particular interest was the name of "Betty Dagg" as one of the "sponsors" at the December 31,1837 baptism. As William's wife Elizabeth had been named "Betty" in the baptismal record for their son George in 1839, it is probable that these two "Bettys" were the same person and therefore William and his family had arrived in Canada by late 1837.

 

The other point of interest arising from this report, and bearing in mind that William's wife Elizabeth was a Dagg before her marriage, the Richard Dagg who was the father of the two young girls born in 1835 and 1837 could have been a brother of Elizabeth.  We already have evidence of William's brother Richard who settled in Biddulph (see report of Richard Dagg of Fitzroy Township).

 

         There is evidence that great-great-grandfather William and Elizabeth had two daughters, Elizabeth and Jane. Jane married a John Bradley and lived for a time at least in Bruce County but no record of this young Elizabeth is available. There were so many Elizabeth Daggs.

 

         It is now timely in this report to make the journey from Pakenham Township to Kincardine Township in Bruce County on the eastern shores of Lake Huron. This is the trip that great-great-grandfather William Dagg, his wife Elizabeth and probably most of their family made in early 1852. Just how they travelled is not known but it was probably by ship from Ottawa through the Rideau Canal to Kingston, then on through Lake Ontario, the Welland Canal to Lakes Erie and Huron to Kincardine. Railways were still a few years in the future for this journey.

 

         Finally, one cannot but wonder why several Daggs moved from Pakenham and Biddulph Townships to Bruce County in the early 1850s. Much of the land in Pakenham and other townships in Lanark is very rocky and not particularly useful for farming. Even in 1989, much of it was still not cleared although the woods yielded maple sugar, timber and other products. Most of the land in Biddulph is excellent. However, at that time, although the soil in southern Bruce County, i.e., Kincardine Township, was very good, much of it was covered with dense forests of hardwood trees which had to be removed with oxen and the limited tools available before crops could be sown. In addition, roads were virtually non-existent and facilities such as lumber mills, grist mills, towns, post offices and schools were still widespread if available at all.

 

         Perhaps the most plausible reason was that one could obtain more land for less money in Bruce County and although the change brought increased hardships, they may have been acceptable in the circumstances. Or perhaps the spirit of adventure, the desire to join in the development of a newly opened region, fired these Daggs and many others to leave a comparatively civilized community and challenge the new frontiers. Who knows? But several Dagg families did go.

 

JAMES DAGG (1797-1842)

 

         This is the James for whom there is a brief description earlier and who was a brother of either my great-great-grandfather William (1796-1864) or his wife Elizabeth. In his book Irish Migrants in the Canadas, Bruce S. Elliott states: "In 1837-38 Joseph Thompson and James Dagg, immigrants from Modreeny (Tipperary) who were married to Ardell or McArdelI sisters, arrived at Ernesttown (near Kingston) and had children baptized at St. George's Church. Within a few years the Thompsons and Daggs moved on to Biddulph Township where James obtained Lot 21, Concession 5 - probably 50 acres - in August 1842.

 

         Sadly, James did not live long to enjoy his land. The History of the County of Middlesex published by Goodspeed of Toronto in 1889 states: "In 1842, Henry Hodgins came from Castleconnel, Ireland and located on Lot 6, South. In the erection of his log house, a heavy log fell upon James Dagg, killing him instantly". James was buried in St. John the Divine churchyard in Arva (a few miles north of London) where his gravestone displays the brief inscription "James Dagg October 13, 1842". He was just 45.

 

         James left his wife Anne and seven children. They were Richard (Brough) Dagg (c. 1822-1912) Rebecca (c. 1826-?) who married Robert Rawlins, James (1828-l855) who married Mary Ann Rollins (?), William (c. 1832-1916) who married Elizabeth (Hewitt) Dagg in 1861 and John (1835-1887) who married a Jane Dagg in 1858. All these five children of James and Anne were born in Tipperary. Another son, Thomas George, was born in Ernesttown in 1838. He married Mary Jane Neill in 1862 and Anne Remington in 1867. The seventh child, Francis (c. 1840-?) married his niece Mary Jane Dagg (1850-1909) in 1872. She was the first child of Richard (Little Dick) Dagg (1827-1911) and Elizabeth Collins (see Chart B).

 

James' widow Anne (Ardell) Dagg married Castle John Hodgins in 1846. They lived on Lot 21, Concession 4 in Biddulph and had one son, Henry Castle Hodgins, on December 19, 1848. Anne died in 1882 and her second husband C.J. Hodgins died in 1887.  Both are buried in the James Dagg plot in Arva, although there is no gravestone for either. I found and photographed James' stone in 1979.

 

James and Anne's oldest son Richard was born in Modreeny Parish, Tipperary c. 1822 and almost certainly came to Canada with his parents in 1837. When his father James died in 1842 and after his mother Anne was remarried to John Hodgins in 1846, young Richard appears to have obtained ownership of the family property and provided a home for his younger siblings and his maternal grandmother Catherine Ardell/McArdell (1771-1872). She lived to be 101 years old and was buried at Holy Trinity Church in Lucan.

 

This Richard, a first cousin of my great-grandfather James and one of several Richard Daggs in Biddulph Township in the mid-1800s, was nicknamed "Brough" because of his role in the construction of the Brough Bridge in London, Ontario when he was a young man. He married Elizabeth Culbert in 1848 in Lucan and had a family of eleven, although two, William and Rebecca, died as infants. According to a 1912 newspaper clipping from The London Free Press which was forwarded to me by Richard's grand-daughter, Valeria A. (Wardell) Mills of Kincardine, Richard was very active in community affairs, well known, highly respected, "a staunch and enthusiastic Orangeman, a member of the Anglican Church and an old time Conservative".

 

Richard, his wife Elizabeth and those members of their family still at home, left their farm in 1877 and moved north to Bruce County where they joined Richard's brother William and other relatives. According to The History of Kincardine Township, Richard owned and presumably farmed Lot 34, Concession 5 from 1877 until 1899 when he and Elizabeth retired in the town of Kincardine. Richard died in 1912 when about 90 and Elizabeth passed away in 1913, aged 90 or 91.

 

Another son of James and Anne was John (1835-1887) who would have been about two years old when the family emigrated from Tipperary in 1837. He married a Jane Dagg, with whom he had nine children and bought his brother Richard's farm in Biddulph when he moved to Bruce County in 1877. The History of The County of Middlesex, which includes Biddulph, reports that, "John Dagg, son of one of the pioneers of Biddulph (James) died in March 1887. At the time he was County Master of Orange Lodges, President of Lucan and Biddulph Agricultural Societies and of The North Middlesex Cheese Manufacturing Co." In addition, John served on the Biddulph Council from 1869-1876 and was Deputy Reeve for the final five years.

 

The third and final member of James and Anne's family who should be reported is William. Information obtained from the Mormon Genealogical Centre in Salt Lake City clearly records the christening of this William on 15 January, 1832 in Modreeny Parish, Tipperary. So he was probably born in late 1831 or very early in 1832. His parents were listed as James and Nanny (Anne) Dagg. Although four of his brothers were listed in the household of Richard (Brough) Dagg in the 1851 census of Biddulph, William was not, so he appears to have struck out on his own when in his late teens.

 

The next evidence available regarding this William was obtained from the Anglican Church in Kincardine, Bruce County in which he married Elizabeth (Hewitt) Dagg on November 16, 1861. Elizabeth, the widow of James Dagg (1829-1860) who was a first cousin of William, was the daughter of John and Jane Hewitt and gave her age as 24. For more on this William and Eliza, see the James Dagg story and Chart E.

 

 

DAGGS IN BRUCE COUNTY

 

         About 1970 I was fortunate enough to discover that "The History of the County of Bruce" had been written by a Norman Robertson and published in 1906 by William Briggs of Toronto. It was re-published in 1960 by J.M. Dent and Sons of Don Mills, Ontario, and although not available in bookshops I checked, it was held in the National Library in Ottawa. I borrowed it through our local library and made copies of a number of its 500-pages containing much very interesting information.

 

         Before settlement of Bruce County by the white man began in the mid-l9th century, the region had been held successively by the Algonquin Indians, the Iroquois and the Ojibwas, often called the Chippewas. French explorers and Jesuit missionaries visited the area in the early part of the 17th century and for many years fur traders passed along its shore enroute between Montreal and the vast fur-bearing lands to the northwest. However, it was not until 1836 that Indian title to the region now including Bruce County was surrendered by treaty to the Crown. The consideration given to the tribes was "twelve hundred and fifty pounds per annum, as long as the grass grows or water runs."

 

         The region became known as the "Queen's Bush" and, in 1846, the District of Huron, but little if anything was done to open it up for settlement for several years. In 1841 the population of Upper Canada was only 486,055 but by 1847 the flow of immigrants had soared and by 1852 the population had doubled to 952,004. In the face of this influx there was a constant demand to open up new lands for the eager settlers. The government responded in early 1847 by ordering the survey of the more accessible parts of Bruce County, and in 1848 plans were made to extend the work.

 

         It appears to have been in the late summer of 1848 that the Durham Road extending from the locality which was to become Kincardine on the shores of Lake Huron, through the southern half of the county to Walkerton and on to the town of Durham was surveyed but not opened.  It provided the primary location for the establishment of concession lines, other roads and lot boundaries on both the north and south sides of the road to a depth of three concessions. In 1850 surveying was completed to the 12th concession north of the Durham Road.

 

         The village of Bervie, named after a sea-coast town in Kincardineshire, Scotland, took shape on the Durham road about seven miles east of the town of Kincardine and in Kincardine Township. It got its start in 1853 when a post office was opened there and this was soon followed by a store, a tavern, a sawmill, a schoolhouse, churches and the Orange Hall. It was to this community that several Dagg families came and at least some of them were there before the post office.

 

         According to The History of the County of Bruce, "The first 'permanent' settlers, as opposed to early fur traders and squatters, to take up land in the county did so in 1848", and "There were less than a dozen in that the first year of actual settlement." In early 1849 they came in greater numbers and one group is reported to have travelled the 30 miles from Goderich to Kincardine over the ice on Lake Huron - presumably by horse-drawn sleigh, although possibly on foot. Most of these very early settlers found land close to the town of Kincardine which sprang up at the mouth of the Penetangore river where there is a small harbour.

 

         Copies of various Orders-in-Council and directives to local Crown Land agents for the surveying and settlement of the county are contained in the history. They make very interesting reading, explain the progressive and orderly manner in which the area was opened, but are much too lengthy to be included in this report. However, the essence of the program is a part of this story and I will endeavour to present it.

 

         Perhaps for the purpose of inducing some settlers into the area quickly, the government offered in 1848 to grant "fifty acres of land to any settler eighteen years old who will present himself with a certificate of probity and sobriety ... etc." The lots offered were those within the first and second concessions either side of the Durham Road and conditions by which a patent, or outright ownership, could be obtained were generous indeed. Essentially, the settler was required to clear and "put in a state of cultivation at least twelve acres within four years, erect a house of at least 18 x 24 feet" and live continuously on the property. No other payment was required but the land was covered in dense forests, provisions had to be back-packed several miles from Kincardine or farther, and help in an emergency was virtually non-existent. Good neighbours, perhaps half a mile away or more, were vital. I can find no evidence of any Daggs taking advantage of this offer for lots in the first and second concessions.

 

         In 1850, the government called tenders for clearing the Durham Road and for the construction of passable bridges and causeways. The job was completed by November of that year but it did not include grading nor were the large tree stumps removed.

 

         In June 1851, the Crown Lands Department of Toronto issued a notice which appeared in the Canada Gazette and three newspapers, announcing the sale of additional lots in Bruce County. These included the properties contained in concessions three to twelve north of Durham Road (N.D.R.) and concession three S.D.R. This appears to have been the time when a number of Daggs entered the Bruce County picture.

 

         The price was first set at 12 shillings and six pence per acre, but was soon reduced to 10 shillings. The Bruce County history states that, "The first sale was made on August 19th, 1851 to Sam Splan of Lot 26, Con. 3, S.D.R." There are other references to Sam Splan and his son Charles who appear to have been commercial fishermen. Probably Sam was related to my paternal grandmother Elizabeth (1865-1955) who married George Dagg in Bervie in 1883.

 

         But I deviate. Payment for land was to be made in ten annual installments with interest. The land was to be cleared at the rate of five acres annually during the first five years and a dwelling house at least 18 x 26 feet was to be erected. There were other conditions and not more than 200 acres were to be sold to any one person on these terms.

 

         With this information, particularly the date when the first sale was made, and with copies of documents received from the Archives of Ontario and the Bruce County Land Registry Office in Walkerton, it is possible to deduce quite accurately when the first Daggs settled in the Bervie area.

 

         As already stated, no Daggs appear to have acquired land in the first two concessions and the first sale in concessions three to twelve on either side of the Durham Road was made in August, 1851. Thus the four or more Daggs who bought land in the area clearly did so after that date. I possess a copy of a Crown Lands document dated January 6th, 1868 and issued in Toronto which states: "Lots No.56, 57, 58 and 59 in the 3rd Range North of the Durham Road in the Township of Kincardine were sold on June 8th, 1852 to William Dagg." This was great-great-grandfather William (1796-1864) who would have been 56 years old when he, his wife Eliza (1808-1855), his son James (1829-1860) and other younger children took on the task of creating a new home and livelihood in the Queen's Bush.

 

         The hardships, obviously great, took their toll. Eliza, of whom we know little, lasted only three years and died at age 47 having born nine or more children. Her second son, my great-grandfather James, died on March 9th, 1860 as a result of an accident incurred while clearing land. I have no document to prove the cause of his death but the belief is based on reports passed down within the family by word of mouth. I do possess a copy of his will prepared on February 21, 1860, just about 16 days before he died. This suggests that his injuries were then assumed to be fatal. I located James' will in the Land Registry Office in Walkerton in 1979 and will append a copy of it to this report.

 

         William outlasted his son James and survived for twelve years in the area before he died in 1864 at age 68. He is buried with Eliza and James in the Anglican Church Cemetery in Bervie where their headstones are well preserved.  William had progressively sold his interests in his four fifty-acre lots to James between 1854 and 1858.

 

         Before continuing with the direct line of my antecedents, mention should be made of those other Daggs who also went to the Bervie area in the 1 850s. There is evidence to show that apart from old William, two other Williams, James, Thomas, and two Richards acquired land in the community. One William, James, Thomas and one Richard were William and Elizabeth's sons while the second Richard who had lived in Biddulph for several years and married Elizabeth Culbert in Lucan in 1848 was their cousin. The second young William was also their cousin and, as we will see, came into the area in 1861. The two young Richards who went to Bruce County were first cousins and one was the eldest son of great-great-grandfather William and the older brother of James (1829-1860). Perhaps because he was a few years younger than his cousin (the other Richard) or perhaps because of a lesser physical stature, he was known as "Little Dick". According to Valeria Mills, he and his wife Elizabeth (Collins) to whom he was married on February 8, 1849, in Carleton Place, produced a family of eleven children. I have plotted them on the family chart and shown any details relating to marriage, children, etc. which are available. This is the Richard who was born in 1827 in Tipperary and died in 1911 in Kincardine where he is buried. His wife, Eliza, died in 1905 at 76 and she too is buried in Kincardine.

 

         As previously stated, the other Richard (1822-1912) married Elizabeth Culbert (1823-1913) in Lucan in 1848 and made the journey north to Bervie in 1877. A brief description of his life and family is recorded under the heading of his father James (1797-1842) .

 

         Before returning to our family history, two or three associated points seem worthy of mention. The first relates to names and the problems encountered by the frequent repetition of the same names within families. In discussing this situation with Austin Hodgins of Lucan in 1979, he told me that there were once over 30 Hodgins men in that area alone but there were only four or five Christian names among the lot, and, as I recall, ten or more were simply named John Hodgins. However, he said this problem was overcome by giving each a nickname which was used in business, banking, socially and apparently for every purpose except official records of birth, marriages, deaths, etc. Obviously the practice was widespread and practical enough when these old folks were alive, but it has created problems for historians, and I can vouch for that.

 

         I have assembled quite a few copies of various deeds of sale and other documents recording land transactions in which Daggs were involved. In many of them the term "yeoman" is used to classify the occupation or social standing of the principals, e.g., James Dagg, yeoman; William Dagg, yeoman; etc.  The Oxford Dictionary contains several definitions of yeoman but the one appearing to be most applicable in this case is, "Small landowners, farmer, person of middle class, engaged in agriculture". Webster gives it in different words but with essentially the same meaning, "One of a class of lesser freeholders, ranking below the gentry, who cultivated their own land and were early admitted in England to political rights". So there we are, yeoman. We dig and hoe our own gardens.

 

         No story of these times would be complete without some description of the educational standards, drinking habits and other social customs. Quite obviously, schooling was not high on the priority list of settlers whose very lives depended on the erection of a house and some sort of barn or shelter for oxen, horses and other livestock. Clearing land and sowing various crops to ensure a food supply was vital. All children, both boys and girls, old enough to help were put to work for the first few years. Schooling might come later.

 

         An examination of the various documents which I have collected provides evidence showing that most of those who were born in Ireland could write and presumably read. But many of those who were born in Canada or who came to it in the 1830s-1 850s when very young do not appear to have had the time or opportunity for it in their new country. Great-grandfather James (1829-60), who came to Canada in 1837-38 with his parents, signed his will and another deed I possess with an X. His father William signed several documents which I have in a very legible hand.

 

         In the book "In the Days of the Canada Company" which describes the settlement of the Huron Tract, north of Middlesex County and south of Bruce County, by John Galt in 1825-50, there are several interesting references to reading, writing and spelling. One story, perhaps an exaggeration, is of the "association which boasted two secretaries for the reason that one couldn't read and the other couldn't write." Another extract states "Although few might be able to write, most of them could or tried to speak. Speeches were rehearsed in the fields where decaying stumps were addressed on 'Free Elections' and 'Parliamentary Reform'." Obviously there were educational facilities in the older established communities but those who led the way in opening new lands had to forego such services for several years.

 

         The consumption of alcohol seems to have been a popular pastime, particularly at fairs, barn-raisings and gatherings of all sorts with the possible exception of church. The history of the Canada Company reports that whisky could be bought quite openly for 25 cents a gallon and sums up the drinking situation with two lines of poetry:

 

"Men learned to drink who never drank before,

And those who always drank now drank the more."

 

         Just to cap off the subject, the same authority states, "Canadian bedrooms were like those of former days in Ireland, not used much, because it was handier to sleep at the table, or under it."

 

         To what extent the early Daggs indulged in this form of merriment I do not know. My grandfather married a morally upright and strictly teetotal woman and my father married a Presbyterian so I had little exposure to the "evils of drink" until I left home and mingled with a more free-spirited segment of society.

 

         Not unnaturally it was more often the young single men who crossed the ocean, acquired new unbroken land and created a home in the woods. And quite naturally these same young men, once established, were desperate to find a sturdy young woman who would work 16 hours a day, perform a hundred and one tasks and raise a large family. Men outnumbered women in those early times and the result was that any girl worth her salt was in great demand. Again quoting from the history of the Canada

Company, it states, "...brides of 16 were common and a girl of 21 was considered to be a hopeless old maid" if not married.

 

         The few preceding paragraphs are intended to provide the reader with some appreciation of the conditions and obvious hardship involved in extracting a living from the unbroken and heavily wooded lands of Bruce County. In addition it is well to remember that winters were very cold and snowfall heavy in that region.

 

JAMES DAGG (1829-1860)

 

         Great-grandfather James, the second son in the family of William and Eliza, progressively acquired by purchase the four lots near Bervie originally bought by his father William in 1852. James does not appear to have married before 1856-57, whereas his older brother Richard did so in 1849 to Elizabeth Collins in Carleton Place, near Ottawa. However, the point is that James seems to have been unencumbered by wife and family for several years after the move to Bervie, probably lived with his parents and worked with them to develop their new lands.

 

         He eventually married Eliza Hewitt, daughter of John and Jane Hewitt. Their first child, my grandfather George, was born in Bervie, probably at home, in 1858. The Hewitts are believed to have come from Tipperary or nearby Longford in county Offaly (formerly Kings County) and may have lived for some time near Clinton, Ontario - about 40 miles south of Bervie in Huron county - before moving on to Bruce. This Eliza had three brothers, Thomas, John and Kit (Christopher) Hewitt as well as a sister Ellen. All appear to have moved to the Bervie area in the mid-50s, presumably with their parents.

 

         James and Eliza produced two children, my grandfather George (1858-1932) and James G. (1860-1930). (No-one seems to know what the G. stood for.) Eliza was still carrying James G. when her husband died. As previously mentioned, his death resulted from injuries sustained in a land-clearing accident but he prepared a will dated February 21, 1860, before dying 17 days later on March 9th.

 

         A copy of the will is appended to the original copy of this report. In it James left two of his 50 acre lots (Nos. 58 and 59) and all his personal belongings to his widow Eliza. He left the other two lots (Nos. 56 and 57) to his son George with the condition that Eliza would retain full use of them until George attained his majority in 1879. He also made several provisions for his father, William.

 

         Rather vague family reports state that the dying James asked his first cousin William to take care of Eliza. True or not, William did marry her on November 16,1861, about 20 months later.

 

         Their marriage records, obtained from the Anglican Church in Kincardine, noted that William was the son of James and Anne Dagg and that he was 26 years old. Eliza was 24. Evidence indicated that they farmed all four lots left by James until George came of age in 1879 after which they appear to have continued on two. According to a History of Kincardine Township, Toil, Tears and Triumph, William and Eliza built a one and one half storey house with seven rooms on top of the hill, eventually sold the farm and retired to Bervie. Eliza died in 1909 (age 72) and William in 1916 (age 84).

 

         By her second marriage Eliza produced eight children, half-brothers and half-sisters of George and James G. According to the best evidence I can obtain they were: Francis H (1863-1948), Elizabeth (1868-1964) who married Albert Aitkenhead of London, Ontario, Annie (1868-1906), Nellie who married Thomas Atkinson, Minnie (1877-1904), William Charles (Will), Fred (believed to have lived only one year), and Jennie (Jane?) who married Hiram Davies of London, Ontario (see Chart E).

 

         As already stated, James (1829-1860) was buried in the Anglican Church Cemetery in Bervie along with his parents William and Eliza. He appears to have been an energetic and progressive young man, and one can only imagine what differences may have come to his family and descendants if he had not died by accident at age 30.

 

GEORGE DAGG (1858-1932)

 

As stated earlier, George was born on May 10, 1858 near Bervie, Ontario, and was the first child of James and Eliza (Hewitt) Dagg. His father died in March 1860 and his mother married James' cousin William on November 16, 1861. So George was brought up with a younger brother, James G., and eight half-brothers and half-sisters who were born to his mother and step-father.

 

Very little is known of his early years, but he probably received some education in Bervie and helped farm the 200 acres of land on which the family lived. It will be remembered that George's father James decreed in his will that George was to have two of four 50-acre lots when he became 21 years old and, as we shall see, he appears to have assumed that ownership in keeping with his father's wishes.

 

According to information received from the Ontario Registrar General and the Bruce and Grey Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society, George Dagg, aged 24, was married to Grace Elizabeth Splan, age 17, on July 18,1883, in St. John's Anglican Church in Bervie.  Elizabeth's parents were Thomas and Elizabeth Splan and her birthplace was recorded as Hullett Township, which is in Huron County and about 40 miles south of Bervie. The marriage license, preserved among the few existing family records, shows the bride's place of residence to have been the Township of Greenock in Bruce County - about 10 to 15 miles east of Bervie. So Elizabeth's parents obviously moved to Greenock after her birth in 1865 and before her marriage in 1883.

 

         Another word about the Splans is of interest and according to family reports, they came to Canada from England. They appear to have settled first near Goderich in what was originally called the Huron Tract and later Huron County, but some of them must have moved north to Bruce County in the late 1850s because The History of the County of Bruce reports both a Samuel and Charles Splan being actively engaged in "the fishing industry established in Kincardine late in the 1850s". We will see that this occupation persisted in the family in later years on the B.C. coast and of course the Splans may well have been commercial fishermen in England before ever coming to Canada.

 

         There appears to be a discrepancy in the marriage record regarding George's age. If he were indeed 24 when married he would have been born in 1859 - but church records show he was confirmed on August 29, 1880 when 22 years old and the inscription on his gravestone in Vancouver also indicated he was born in 1858. There is other supporting evidence too.

 

         George and Elizabeth evidently farmed Lots 56 and 57 on the third concession North of the Durham Road (about two miles from Bervie) until 1894. Their only son, Fred Harold (my father), was born on December 29,1884, and their daughter, Vera Teresa, on July27, 1891.

 

         A document which I obtained in 1979 from the Bruce County Land Registry Office in Walkerton clearly indicates that on February 15,1894, George and Elizabeth sold their property and everything on it for $3,500.00 and moved to Glammis, about eight miles north-east of Bervie. I have been unable to determine George's occupation in that community, but it could have been more farming or he may have been engaged in some aspect of the lumber business because it was in that endeavour that he found employment throughout most of his remaining years.

 

         In any case, their stay was relatively brief and in April 1898 they moved to Holland, Manitoba. Their send-oft from Glammis suggests that they had been well respected in the community as Elizabeth was presented with a brooch and George with a handsome watch, which is almost certainly the one he left to me when he died in 1932. Of greater importance is the rather touching and beautifully expressed sentiments given to them on the occasion. They have been passed down through the years and are, I believe, worthy of reproduction here.

 

"To Mr. and Mrs. George Dagg:

 

On the eve of your departure from our village, we the residents of Glammis and vicinity deem this a fitting opportunity to express in some tangible manner our friendship for you and regret that you have deemed it advisable to remove to the Province of Manitoba.

 

Your cheerful and courteous manner combined with your willing and ready help to advance every object that would make social life pleasant, agreeable and useful has gained for you a warm place in the hearts of the people with whom you have been associated for the last four years.

 

We hope that our loss may prove your gain and that Providence may smile on your efforts to secure a comfortable home in that land of great possibilities. And we pray that a large measure of that treasure which neither corrodes nor decays may be given to you and your family from that hand that is always open and ready to give.

 

Mr. Dagg, we present you with this watch, hoping that it will remind you of the warm hearts you leave behind. Mrs. Dagg, we present you with this brooch, not for its intrinsic value, but as a token of our esteem for you."

 

This was signed by four committee members on behalf of the donors and dated April 6th, 1898.

 

         George was by no means the first Dagg to go to Manitoba. His brother James G. had gone to Selkirk in 1882 and his half-brother Francis H. (Frank) worked in both Winnipeg and Selkirk in 1883 and 1885 before finally going to Holland in 1893. No doubt George was encouraged to make his move by reports from these forerunners.

 

         George, Elizabeth and family settled within the town of Holland and George is believed to have worked in the lumber yard most, if not all of the 24 years they remained there and until yet another final move to Vancouver in July 1922. It is not known if George ever held a financial interest in the Holland lumber business, but Francis H. Dagg did own it from 1893 to 1904.

 

         The move to Vancouver was probably prompted by reports from Elizabeth's brother Thomas and a cousin Charles Splan. They were quite successful commercial fishermen and each owned one or more salmon canneries up the British Columbia coast. George again returned to his established trade and graded lumber for one of the large mills on what is now known as Granville Island. He and Elizabeth owned a comfortable home at 1086 Thurlow Street in the West End of Vancouver where George died peacefully in his 74th year in 1932. He had been a member of the Oddfellows Lodge for over 50 years, was a staunch Orangeman and a member of the Bruce Old Boys Association.

 

         Elizabeth, with her daughter Vera, remained in the Thurlow Street house until 1944 when they moved to West 13th Avenue, just two blocks from my parents' home in the South Granville area. Elizabeth lived to be 90 and died in 1955. Vera, who had always been under tight control by a strict and dominant mother never found her wings, never married, and died rather unhappily in Vancouver in 1965 at the age of 74.

 

George and Elizabeth's son, Fred Harold, my father, will be the subject of a separate biographical sketch to follow.

 

A.G.D.

May, 1992.

 

JAMES G. DAGG (1860-1930)

 

            James G. Dagg was born near Bervie, Ontario about one month after his father James (1829-1860) died of injuries sustained in a land-clearing accident.  As in the case of his older brother, George, he was raised by his mother Eliza and his step-father William Dagg, a cousin of his father.

 

            His father's will contained nothing for the young James G., but he appears to have been an ambitious and industrious man who attained a fair amount of success in life.

 

            In 1971 I had the good fortune to locate by mail a Mrs. Robert Elias Lee of Winnipeg.  She was the former Alexandra E. Fern Dagg, second daughter of James G. and his wife the former Emily Sophia Clark.  They were married in Selkirk, Manitoba on January 14, 1891.  Alexandra provided me with any information available to her (see Chart C) including a fairly extensive Winnipeg newspaper obituary pertaining to her father.  It is of considerable interest and follows in its entirety:

 

            “ James G. Dagg, former mayor of Selkirk and pioneer merchant, died at Meaford, Ontario, aged 70. He is survived by his widow and a daughter Mrs. R.E. Lee.  The body is being brought to Winnipeg for burial.  The service will be held at St. John's Cathedral with Archdeacon McElheran officiating.

 

                Mr. Dagg was born at Kincardine, Ontario, and joined the first army of easterners who trekked west to open up the prairie provinces in the early '80s.  He came to Manitoba in 1882 and settled in Selkirk where he opened a store which was soon one of the most successful business enterprises in the town. 

 

                Having established himself as a merchant, Mr. Dagg began to devote himself to municipal affairs and was elected to the town council for 14 years. He then served four consecutive years as mayor.

 

                Mr. Dagg was an active worker with the Anglican Church, being a member of the Anglican executive council and an honourary lay secretary of the diocese of Rupert’s Land.  He also was one of the founders of Dynevor Indian Hospital at Selkirk and acted as secretary of the institution for 20 years.

 

                He was well known in political circles and supported the Liberal party, being once invited on a speaking tour with Sir Wilfred Laurier.  He was president of the Selkirk Liberal Association for many years and was at one time offered the Liberal nomination for Lisgar constituency.  This he declined to accept.

 

                Besides his church activities, Mr. Dagg was interested in welfare work among young people and was one of the founders of the Young Men's Christian Association in Winnipeg.  He was also prominent in Masonic circles, being an old member of the Lisgar Lodge, A.F. and A.M. and once treasurer of the Masonic Grand Lodge of Manitoba."

 

James G. must have moved back to Ontario in the early '20s or sooner, because his letter of September 26, 1925 to a John Dagg of Tipperary (previously mentioned) was from King, Ontario, where, according to his letter, he was "a road contractor build­ing MacAdam roads in summer' and travelling a good deal in win­ter.  I cannot locate King on my maps, but I understand it was near Toronto.  Meaford, where James G. died, is on Georgian Bay, about 50 miles from where he was born.

 

Alexandra (Dagg) Lee reported that her older sister Ainslie St. Clair Dagg (1892-1918) was a Canadian Army Medical Corps nursing sister in the First World War and is buried in the ceme­tery in Cliveden, England.  Cliveden is the name given to the very large Astor estate on the north bank of the Thames River near Taplow in the County of Buckingham, about 25 miles west of London.  A Canadian Military Hospital was located there in World War One and a cemetery was established in the War Memorial Garden on the estate for those who died in the hospital.  According to Canadian Army Medical Corps records, Ainslie St. Clair Dagg had commenced nursing duties in the Taplow hospital in April 1918 and died of the influenza epidemic which killed an estimated 15-25 million people throughout the world in 1918-19.  She became sick on November 16, 1918 and died on November 29 just 13 days later and just 18 days after the end of the war.  Both the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and the Public Archives of Canada provided copies of several pertinent documents.  Ainslie's father, James G. Dagg was my grandfather George's brother.  Therefore, she was my father's cousin and my aunt.

 

Finally, although James C. had two daughters, he had no sons, so no Daggs succeeded him (see Chart C).

 

FRANCIS HENRY DAGG (1863-1948)

 

As previously reported, Francis Henry Dagg was the first of eight children in the family of William Dagg and Eliza (Hewitt) Dagg (see Chart E).  His parents farmed on two fifty-acre lots in the Third Concession North of the Durham Road, just two to three miles from the town of Bervie in Kincardine Township, Bruce County, Ontario.  Frank, as he was called, was born on September 5, 1863, in Bervie, probably attended the local school and no doubt helped his parents farm until old enough to strike out on his own.

 

According to notes provided by his first daughter Marjorie Donaghy of Vancouver, he left Bervie in 1881 or 1882 to work in lumber mills in Bay City, Michigan for six months.  After another year or more at home on the farm, he went to Winnipeg in April 1883, contacted his half-brother James G. Dagg in Selkirk and found work in the lumber business in Winnipeg, Selkirk and nearby Keewatin, Ontario, before returning to the farm in Bervie in 1884.

 

In 1885 he went again to Winnipeg by way of Fargo, North Dakota and soon found more work with the Dick and Manning Lumber Company in Keewatin, near Kenora, and in Fort Francis farther south where he was manager of a sawmill for five years.

 

In 1893 he went to Holland, Manitoba, a small town founded in 1877 and located about 85 miles west of Winnipeg in a develop­ing farming community.  There, with the help of an uncle, not named, he operated a brick kiln for three years.  In addition, he established a local lumber business which he retained until 1904 when he became a building contractor.

 

According to the History of Holland (1877-1967), Frank operated the lumber yard until 1909 when he and his nephew Fred Dagg (my father) purchased the town hardware store.  Fred turned over his share of the business about 1918 to go farming and the store was owned and operated by Frank and his family until 1948.

 

Frank married Catherine Anderson of Perth, Ontario in 1896 and with their family of ten, they took a very active part in community affairs.  In addition to those ventures already mentioned, Frank at one time owned the local ice rink, was a charter member of the Holland Masonic Lodge, a director of the Holland Agricultural Society, and a staunch supporter of the Anglican Church.

 

Much more could be written about Francis H. Dagg and his fine industrious family, but perhaps this brief biography may be enlarged by one of his direct descendants with access to more details.  As I write this in early 1984, four of the original ten members of this family, Marjorie, Kathleen, Frank and Ferne, all live in or near Vancouver.  Arthur resides in Winnipeg.

 

INTERIM SUMMARY

 

Having reported as fully as possible on William (1796-1864), his known direct relatives and the first two generations succeeding him, it now appears timely to pause and make a few observations.

 

The first and most obvious point is that William and Eliza­beth with three or perhaps four young children led the way to the new world when travel was very slow and difficult to say the They were true pioneers, not just once but twice - in Lanark County and Bruce County. Of their nine children, they appear to have raised five or six to maturity, probably about average in those times and under their circumstances.

 

            Secondly, it can be seen from Chart C that we have been able to record some information regarding six generations of Daggs in a direct line of descent from William, with Ian Wolfe Dagg, born in 1985, being the only male Dagg of his generation at this time.

 

            Other items of interest, mostly derived from examination of Charts A - E include:

 

1.   There were at least three sets of twins in the related Dagg families.

 

2.   Several children died within a year of their birth.

 

3.   A goodly number of ancestors lived into their 80s and 90s.

 

                    4.       There were several marriages of cousins and one of an uncle marrying his niece - only six years younger.

 

                    5.   As the title of this story suggests, there seems to have been a tendency of our Daggs to move ever westward. Each leg of migration, from Tipperary to the Ottawa Valley, to Bruce County, to Manitoba, to Vancouver, and now as I write this I am on Vancouver Island - close to Victoria.  Is Japan the next stop?

 

 

 

 

Jann Callaghan Cullen                                                                                                                                   August 30, 2000