Person:James Cargill (1)

HALTON'S HISTORICAL & NEWSPAPER RECORDS

C. Day James CARGILL died 1866 Nassagaweya, Halton, Ontario. His wife Isabella SHAW Cargill died 1871 in Nassagaweya. Two sons were in the area: James and David. David married Ann McHENRY. James married Isabella MATHEWS [the New York passenger list^[2] and 1861 census^[3] show that Isabella (who was previously married) married James senior]. David and Ann had a son, David CARGILL II who married Agnes EMERSON. I would like to find information about the Emerson parents.

James came to Canada 16 years after his son, David. He lived to be 104. In 1796 he was one of 56,000 farmers in Ireland to receive a free spinning or loom as a reward for planting a certain acreage of their holdings in flax. The government was encouraging the Irish linen industry. He was the only Cargill on the list - but it could have been his father.

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3} Canadian Champion, January 18, 1866, page 2, column 4.

   DEATH OF A CENTENARIAN - Died at Nassagaweya, County Halton, on the 10th instant, Mr James Cargill, a native of Ballyhemlin, near Bushmills, Parish of Balleaugh, in the County of Antrim, at the advanced age of 104 years and some months. This old gentleman was born in the year 1760 - that in which George the III ascended the throne of Britain. He thus was a contemporary of all the stirring events of that long reign; was personally cognizant of the rise and fall of Napoleon ; bore a part in the suppression of the rebellion of 1798 in his native land and might have held conversation with men, who existed during the troublous times of the Pretender and his son Charles Edward. Reflection on what he may have had a personal knowledge of, almost shortens in imagination the time which has expired since his birth. Very probably his father was acquainted with men who defended the walls of Derry, and fought for the Protestant succession on the banks of the ever memorable Boyne water, events which we moderns, are habituated to look upon as belonging to a long by-gone age. It is almost useless to add that he lived to see the descendants of the third generation rise around him, in his cis-altantic home; and his remains were accompanied to their last resting place, in Episcopal burying-ground of Nassagaweya, by a numerous cortege of relatives, friends and acquaintances. - SPECTATOR

2. ↑ ^{2.0 2.1 2.2} [1], in National Archives and Records Administration. New York Passenger Lists, 1820-1957. (Washington, D. C.: National Archives and Records Administration).

   the Cargill family, arriving in New York 14 May 1846 on the way from Ireland to Canada
   James Cargill, age 70, farmer
   Isabella, age 37
   William, age 20
   Henry, age 17
   James, age 12
   Hugh, infant
   Matty, age 18
   Mary Jane, age 16
   Elizabeth, age 10

3. ↑ ^3.0 3.1 Nassagaweya Township, Halton County, Canada West, in Canada. 1861 Census of Canada. (Ottawa, Ontario, Canada: Library and Archives Canada).

   James Cargill, born in Ireland, age 96
   Isabella Cargill, born in Ireland, age 61

4. ↑ His age in various records is not consistent - implying a birth year of 1760/61 (his death record), 1765 (the 1861 census), or 1776 (the New York passenger list). He married (for the second time) in 1831 and his last child was born about 1842, so a birth year of about 1770 seems more reasonable than the 1760 his obituary states.