| Notes |
- Because their lives were cut short, Robert and Mary have left us no words of their own. There is no first-hand account of their lives. Only two of their four children left surviving descendants, and one of those is in another country, thus reducing the opportunity for even second-hand accounts of their lives to be passed down through the generations. Everything we know about them comes from the accounts of Robert's surviving brothers, Duncan and Peter, as well as public records. What follows is my best attempt to pull together a narrative from those different sources.
Robert Stewart was born in 1813 in the clachan of Morell, Easter Glentarken, Comrie, Perthshire, Scotland. The Comrie OPR records his place of birth as "Moril." He was the eighth child of Robert Stewart and Catharine McNaughtan.
When Robert was still a young boy, the local landlord in Scotland decided to empty Glen Tarken of residents and forcefully moved all his tenant cottars to the nearby village of St. Fillans. Economic conditions and increasing rents finally drove Robert's family to the point of deciding to leave Scotland and sale to the New World. The entire family emigrated en masse, including all 11 children, the older siblings spouses and their children, as well as Robert's widowed mother. Robert would have been 21 when the family left Scotland. The full story of their hazardous journey, including losing all their possession at the bottom of a river after their barge sank, is detailed in Robert's mother's notes.
Upon arriving in Hamilton, Onario, Canada, the family was temporarily quarantined in the waterfront warehouse district due to a cholera outbreak. Having lost all their possessions on the journey, Robert's family presented themselves at the door of their distant cousin, Sir Allan Napier MacNab, latterly of Dundurn Castle, Hamilton. Robert's maternal grandmother was a MacNab from nearby to the original Dundurn in Perthshire, Scotland, not far from Robert's birthplace. MacNab provided housing in Hamilton for the older siblings and likely assisted Robert and the younger siblings in acquiring the farm property in Puslinch.
Robert and his wife Mary, along with his younger siblings, Catharine, Peter, and William, as well their widowed mother, Catharine, made the 40 km treck from Hamilton to their new home in Puslinch. There was not much of a road through the forest to travel on. The journey, which today takes about 30 minutes by car, would have taken them at least a full day by horse and wagon.
By March 1835 (at the latest) the family had arrived in Puslinch Township, Wellington County, in what was then called Upper Canada (present-day Ontario, Canada). They were among the earliest settlers in Puslinch. They occupied concession 3 lot 19-rear with Robert's in-laws, the Gillespies, occupying the front of the same lot. When they arrived in Puslinch their property would have been uncleared forest. There was nothing there for them to live in. They had to clear the land themselves and build their own accomodations.
According to Robert's brother Peter's memoires, Robert and Mary and their family initially lived in a shanty "without any door, but an old country blanket hung over." A later biography of Peter Stewart indicates that the land was originally owned by a Mr. Burnside, however it's more likely that he was just the clerk who sold them the land. The Stewarts appear to have been the original settlers of the property.
The Stewarts and the Gillespies seem to have arrived at the same time. It's quite probable that the two families knew each other before coming to Puslinch, and possibly even before coming to Canada.
Early census records indicate that the Stewarts were Secessionist Presbyterians, not Church of Scotland. The Secession Presbyterian Church (United Synod) Congregation in Puslinch was organized in part by Hugh Gillespie in 1837. This congregation soon merged with the local Church of Scotland congregation to become Duff's Presbyterian Church.
In 1842, Robert Stewart was residing in Puslinch, Wellington, Ontario, Canada with his wife and children.
Between February 1848 and January 1849 Robert, his wife Mary and mother Catherine, all died within 11 months of each other. There was a small pox outbreak in the community that year. It is presumed that was their cause of their collective deaths. Robert and Mary had four children (ages 1-11) who found themselves orphaned. Robert's younger brother Peter and sister Catherine were in their 20s by this point (and residing on the same family farm), and assumed guardianship of their orphaned niece and nephews.
In 1851, Robert and Mary's older children, Robert, Hugh and Catharine, were residing in Puslinch, Wellington, Ontario, Canada, on the Stewart family farm in the care of their uncle Peter Stewart and aunt Catharine Stewart. Robert and Mary's youngest son, James, was residing in Hamilton, Wentworth, Ontario, Canada in the care of his oldest aunt Margaret McCallum (nee Stewart) and her husband, William McCallum. James would have been still nursing at the time and would have needed a guardian capable of breast feeding him. Aunt Margaret was still having children at that point.
Robert Stewart and Mary Gillespie, along with Robert's mother, Catharine McNaughtan, are buried in Crown Cemetery in Puslinch, Wellington, Ontario, Canada, directly across the road from Duff's Presbyterian Church.
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Abt 1813 - 1849 (~ 35 years)
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