Edgcumbe Family

EDGCUMBE DANIEL

Posted By: Connie Swearingen (email)
Date: 4/20/2010 at 20:17:06

Woodbury County History 1984

Edgcumbe Family
By Enid Wenban, Sussex, England

My grandfather, William Edgcumbe, was born in Cornwall, Engalnd in 1840. In 1864, he married Mary Grace Daniel and they had three children: John Henry Daniel; Mary Susan Annie; and Florence Grace. William was a farmer and came of Cornish farming stock, but in the 1860/70’s farm land was difficult to obtain, and other work was also difficult to get. Many Cornish miners emigrating to Africa, Australia and USA in the hope of making a better living than at home. In the mid-1870’s the family sailed to New York, then on to Iowa where they resided with a relative, Fred Daniel, for a time, before purchasing a farm from Robert Brown, situated three miles north of Salix. There were two separate area of land, one of fifty-three acres and one of 160.

A tragedy occurred on 11th October 1881 when my grandfather returned home form duck shooting and was cleaning his gun in the kitchen. It must have been loaded and it went off accidentally, killing his wife instantly. He must have had a terrible time caring for the family on his own. The youngest child was only six. Eventually, my grandfather who had been corresponding with a single lady, Mary Quiller Fowler, who he knew before leaving Cornwall, wrote and asked her to travel out and marry him. She was become my grandmother. She sailed for New York in the summer of 1884 taking a servant girl with her. They came from the small fishing village of Polperro, and although her ancestors had been seafaring people, she had never travelled far herself. My mother told me that on the train journey from New York my grandmother said that the whalebone stiffening in her dress was so uncomfortable that she had the maid rip it all out.

William Edgcumbe and Mary Quiller Fowler were married at Salix on 21st August 1884 by Rev W W Brown. I have a copy of the marriage certificate. My mother, Winifred Jane Fowler Edgcumbe was born on 11th June 1884, my grandmother then being aged 42. There were no other children of the marriage. I have my mother’s birth certificate. It is handwritten and states that Dr F W Marotz attended the birth.

My grandmother was apparently not happy living in Salix. She found the life hard and was homesick and worried about her parents. He told my mother about the frightening cyclones, now called twisters, that they experienced, when everyone went to the cellars and took pillows to protect their heads.

In 1888 when my mother was aged three, the family returned to Cornwall, England, to live at Polperro from where grandmother had come. They brought Florence, aged 13, with them, but left John and Annie behind. By this time I think both were married. John and his wife, Lillie, were left in charge of the farm. They had three children: Olive Mary who married Charles Low and had two sons, Donald and Marcus.

Annie married William Currier and had a daughter, Dora, who married Clarence Holman and had two sons, one of whom was calleld Currier.

My grandparents returned to vist Salix a number of times after returning to England, and in 1911, grandfather made a settlement of the land, conveying it to Annie Edgcumbe Currier and William Currier, his daughter and son-in-law. I have copies of these papers in my possession. By this time, John Edgcumbe, the eldest child, had died, and financial arrangements were made my grandfather for his widowed daughter-in-law, Lille. What became of William Marcus Edgcumbe, John’s youngest child, I do not know, but presume he must have died young.

My step-aunt Florence visited America many times to see her relatives and friends. In 1927, she married William Grater in England, and she died in 1937. I remember her well, spending school holidays with her as a child.

William and Annie Currier visited their family in England a number of times. Annie died in the mid-1920’s. I have a letter dated 1937 from someone called Isabel, addressed to Florence. It mentions William Currier as living in Sioux City with his daughter Dora at that time. There is also a press cutting of the marriage of Dora’s son, Currier Holman to Lucille Sve in 1937.

William Edgcumbe, my grandfather, died in 1919 and his wife in 1920, the year I was born, so I did not know either of them.

In about 1948, James Low came to Englandin the US Navy ship, Missouri. He visited my mother at Purley, Surrey, where we were living, but I was unfortunately away at the time. I have now lost touch with all may Amercan step-cousins. I know that Florence Gallier and Olive Low died some time ago, and that Reed Gallier, Jr, lived in Oregon after leaving the Army.

My mother, wo married Donald Wenban in 1913, always wanted to visit Salix, the place where she was born, but was never able to do so. She died in 1970, age 84. I have one brother who lives in Canada with him family. He is called William Edgcumbe Wenban, after his grandfather.

I find genealogy and social history a fascinating study and am pleased to make this small contribution to the history of Woodbury County, where many British people of true pioneering spirit settled to start a new life.