Christopher Hodgson, Mary Wise Harrison, and Keziah Holt

Christopher Hodgson, Mary Wise Harrison, and Keziah Holt

The exact date & place of Christopher Hodgson's birth is uncertain.

Mary Wise Harrison was christened in the Parish Church of Rillington, Yorkshire England on May 27 1780 d/o William Harrison and Mary Wise. Her HARRISON ancestry can be traced reliably in the Church records of Rillington back six generations , ending with Thomas Harrison born c1575.

Christopher and Mary were married on Jun 25 1799 in Rillington. At the time, his occupation was listed as tailor. Christenings of their first five children (four survived) appear in the Rillington Parish Register and Bishop's Transcripts.

Christopher and Mary with children Sarah, Hannah, Ralph and John ages 11 to 19, made the voyage from England to Port Elgin NB on the 'Atlantic', which sailed Mar 17 1820 from Liverpool bound for Montreal. Their son Luke was born less than 3 weeks after arriving. According to a passed-down story the family walked from Port Elgin to near Farming ton in River Philip Township, Cumberland County, NS a distance of some 35 miles . There they settled on Crown land and homesteaded.

Note: Christopher & Mary subsequently *re-registered* the births of their children in the Township Records of Cumberland County.

Upon arrival in 1820 Mary already had close family in Nova Scotia. Her grand-uncle & grand-aunt John & Sarah (Lovell) Harrison had come with their nine children in 1774 settling at Lower Maccan. John & Sarah were part of the "first wave" of more than 1000 settlers to Nova Scotia's Chignecto Isthmus (Acadia: Cumberland County, NS and Westmorland County, NB) which took place between 1772 and 1775. The immigration from Yorkshire was encouraged by then Lt. Governor Franklin, affordable land the incentive, in order to populate that part of North America with loyal British Subjects, thus discouraging annexation of this territory during the ensuing American 1783-84 Revolutionary War.

Christopher and Mary emigrated as part of the "second wave" of the Yorkshire migration which occurred between 1816 and 1820. Safe travel to North America was again possible following the War of 1812. Napoleon had been defeated at Waterloo in 1815. Bruce Elliott describes the period in his article in the PEI journal "The Island Magazine", Fall/Winter 1996: "...the return to Britain of thousands of service personnel, whose arrival intensified the unemployment problem, created close on to a decade of economic distress and social disturbances. Emigration once more was seen as a solution to personal difficulties...especially in the north of England where the departure of friends and relatives for Nova Scotia in the 1770s was still fresh in the memories of older people."

Mary Hodgson died in River Philip Township, Cumberland, Nova Scotia on Sep 16 1832.

In 1835 Christopher remarried to the widow Kezia (Fales) Holt. Kezia already had seven children (four survived) by her former husband John F. Holt, who died in 1829. Christopher and Kezia had one daughter Mary Jane born in 1836.

Christopher Hodgson died in Nova Scotia on Nov 26 1853.

In 1869 Kezia Hodgson moved to California to live with her daughter Mary Jane (Hodgson) Page & family. There she died on Jun 11 1885.