John HODGINS 1786 married a woman named Mary DALTON. They had four known children:
These four siblings came to Canada in 1847. The brother John HODGINS 1808 was already married at the time of their immigration. His wife was Catherine Ann COLLERY. They brought their 7 children with them: Thomas, John, Ann, Patrick, Catherine, Michael, and James. As I have found no other FITZPATRICK families in the York County area, I suspect that the brother Patrick brought his wife Bridget FITZPATRICK with him from Ireland as well. The brother Michael and sister Anne were unmarried at the time of the voyage.
From 1845 to 1847 Ireland suffered a disastrous famine resulting from the failure of the potato crop. Irish farmers found their food stores rotting in their cellars, the crops they relied on to pay the rent to their British and Protestant landlords destroyed. Peasants who ate the rotten produce sickened and entire villages were consumed with cholera and typhus. It is believed that beween 1845 and 1851 more than 1,000,000 died of disease and starvation.
Landlords evicted hundreds of thousands of peasants, who then crowded into disease-infested workhouses. Other landlords paid for their tenants to emigrate, sending hundreds of thousands of Irish to North America and other English-speaking countries. But even emigration was no panacea -- shipowners often crowded hundreds of desperate Irish onto rickety vessels labelled "coffin ships." In many cases, these ships reached port only after losing a third of their passengers to disease, hunger and other causes. Large numbers of people emigrated to Canada; it has been estimated that by the end of 1848, through emigration and deaths resulting from famine, the population of Ireland decreased by more than 2 million people during the peak of the great potato famine.
The HODGINS brothers and sister crossed the ocean in one of those infamous overcrowded "coffin ships" in 1847. The voyage across the Atlantic lasted as long as ten weeks. Most of the immigrants were poor so they traveled in steerage with ten weeks of eating mostly cold porridge. These boats had no sanitary facilities so the stench was unbearable.
The four siblings settled in King Twp, York Co, Ontario, just south of the town of Glenville on the 2nd concession. They were a few minutes west of Newmarket. The nearest Catholic church, St. John's Chrysostom, was in Newmarket,.
By 1851 John HODGINS 1808 had built a one story log cabin on his 50 acres of property and was growing wheat, oats and potatoes. He had 3 milk cows which produced 50 pounds of butter that year. He also owned 1 pig.
The brother Michael (our ancestor) married soon after arriving in King Township to Elizabeth DALTON. Whether or not she is related to Michael's mother Mary DALTON is not known.
The brother Patrick married a woman named Bridget FITZPATRICK. They started their family in 1849, having a total of 8 known children.
John and Patrick raised their families in log cabins. Michael had a frame house, which apparently wasn't necessarily any WARMER in the winter. Their lands were right beside each other.
I have not found anything on the sister Anne. I have not found her listed with her brothers in any census and have yet to find a burial place for her.
The brothers were all diligent members of the St. John's Chrysostom Catholic Church in Newmarket. They all had their babies christened there, with each other being the godparents. All the HODGINS "cousins" stood up for each other at each other's marriages... it was often very hard to figure out who was who... because of the 3 very large families and all the cousins with the same or similar names... very challenging!
John and Patrick have lovely headstones over their graves... our Michael HODGINS 1815, his wife Elizabeth DALTON and their son John Joseph HODGINS are also in the same cemetery, but in unmarked graves. Michael's second wife has a headstone, and the lower half has sunken into the earth. Possibly more information is on the lower half as more than one body is often buried in the same grave.