Harriet Edwards

Notes:

Harriet's gravestone has her birth year as 1834; the 1900 census has her dob as 5 May 1835.

Her baptismal record gives her parents' names as George Edwards and Aby Wray. She was baptized on 18 Sep 1831, so I have estimated her actual birthday.

According to census data in 1900, Harriet came to America in 1836. However, that is not possible since she is in the England census in 1841 and 1851. She probably came in 1853.

Harriet married Jacob Roe 26 Jan 1854, RI. Jacob was born Abt 1826, England; died 17 Sep 1862, Antietam, MD. [Group Sheet]

1. Harriet "Hattie" Jane Roe was born Abt 1855, RI; died Abt 29 Jul 1928; was buried 1 Aug 1928, Walnut Hill Cemetery, Armistice Blvd., Pawtucket, RI.
2. Margaret A. Roe was born Between 1857 and 1858, RI; died Aft 1 Jun 1870.
3. George Henry Roe was born May 1862, RI; died 3-5 Sep 1924; was buried 6 Sep 1924, Walnut Hill Cemetery, Armistice Blvd., Pawtucket, RI.

Harriet married John Livsey 24 Oct 1863, Fall River, MA. John was born Abt 1827, England; died Aft 24 Oct 1863. [Group Sheet]

Harriet married Joseph P. Martin 16 Nov 1865, RI. Joseph was born 31 Dec 1838, RI; died Abt 2 Jan 1916; was buried 5 Jan 1916, Walnut Hill Cemetery, Armistice Blvd., Pawtucket, RI. [Group Sheet]

Notes:

England census of 1841 at Ledbury, Herefordshire: George Edwards 60 soldier born England, Abegal 35 born Ireland, Susan 7 Ireland, Eliza 5 Ireland, and James 2 England.

England census of 1851 at Ashton Under Lyne, Lancashire: George Edwards 61 (after that illegible), Abigal 47 Ireland, Harriet 19 Ireland, Susan 16 Ireland, Eliza J. 14 Ireland, James 12 born Brood Moor Common, Herefordshire; plus two lodgers, Jane Lynch 36 and John Mcalister 25.

George Edwards was an English soldier. Because of his duties, he was away from home a lot. His daughter, Eliza Jane Edwards Andrews (the mother of Mary Elizabeth, the mother of Laura, the mother of Norman . . .), remembered him as a wonderfully kind and good man. It was said by her that he never knowingly killed a man in battle (did he just tell her that to calm her fears?). Once when he was assigned to guard duty over the bodies of some dead soldiers, he was very sleepy and dozed off. When another soldier came along and asked him the password, he didn't answer. He asked again, and still no answer. After the third time, he was supposed to be shot. George said he felt someone slap him with a cold hand, and he awoke just in time to answer with the correct password. He felt it was one of the dead soldiers that had somehow saved his life (an angel?).

He was at home on sick leave when he heard bells tolling, signifying the death of an important person. He looked up from his bed and asked his wife whom the bells were tolling for, and she answered, "The Duke of Wellington." George looked over at a picture of Wellington which hung on the wall; he had been his commanding officer in the army (perhaps at Waterloo? or later?). At that, George turned over and died.

It was sometime after that, I gather, that his family became very poor. They lived in the area of Herefordshire, as nearly as I can determine. The oldest daughter, Helen, by his first wife Charlotte, had married a wealthy man. At some point she must have either died or moved away, otherwise she would have helped the family. Eliza Jane worked in a factory, where she caught her finger in the gears. Her boss let her go to the doctor, who cut it off, bandaged her hand, and sent her back to work. It was probably the little finger of the left hand, as her daughter Mary Elizabeth remembered in later years.

The girls eventually traveled to America (Eliza Jane was probably not more than 17), around 1854 (below decks by steerage), to set up a home for their mother, Abigail, who came later with their younger brother, Jimmy. They settled in the area of Central Falls or Pawtucket.

Margaret, the oldest, married and went to Sacramento, California, where it is thought that she and her husband may have died in a flood. Susan married and moved to New York. Elizabeth, or Aunt Lizzie, married William Wardell and went to live in Bristol, RI, where she is now buried along with her husband and mother, Abigail Ray (Wray) Edwards. Harriet married Jacob Roe, and had a son, George, and two daughters, Margaret and Hattie. Uncle Jacob went to the Civil War along with his brother-in-law, William Andrews (Eliza Jane's husband). Sadly, Jacob was killed.

Eliza Jane, my great-great grandmother, married William Andrews, who had originally come from the area of Manchester/Lancashire, England. Besides fighting in the Civil War, he became an overseer at a mill in Centerdale, RI. During that time Eliza Jane took a charitable interest in her sister-in-law "Nappy," the deserted and destitute wife of James, her younger brother. He had taken his young son Jimmy and run off, leaving his wife with their daughter Etta. At Eliza Jane's encouragement, William gave Nappy a job and saw that she had a place to live in one of the mill tenements in Centerdale.

Years later, Uncle James wrote asking for help, so Eliza Jane and her niece (one of Harriet's daughters) traveled to Philadelphia to meet with him. After a long time they brought him back. They learned he had gone to Florida, married another woman, had four more sons, and now his second wife had died; money and food were scarce for James and the boys. By this time his daughter, Etta, was about 26, and was trying to care for her mother, Nappy, who had gone"crazy" with grief over the loss of her son over all the years. James married for a third time, so this wife was stepmother to his four boys (one of whom was named George, after Grandfather Andrews). The oldest boy, Jimmy (his son by Nappy), came back to Rhode Island and lived for a while with his mother and sister, Etta, but would wander off to Philadelphia, and eventually married a girl there. So there were some hard times and hard feelings in the family at that time. Mary Elizabeth later reflected that the families did better as time went on, and she hoped they would all know each other better in the next world.

George married Abigail Abby WRAY Abt 1825. Abigail (daughter of George WRAY and Betsey Unknown) was born Abt 1804, Ireland; died 10 Dec 1863, Thames Street, Bristol, RI; was buried , North Burial Ground, Bristol, RI. [Group Sheet]

Notes:

My information on Abigail's life came primarily from the writings of my great-grandmother Chafee (nee Mary Andrews). I followed this up with two visits to the vault at the Bristol Town Hall in Bristol, RI, where I located and photocopied the death record, which gave additional facts such as date of death, age at death, parents' names, and place of birth. It says that her family was Scotch-No. Irish, and that she was born in Scotland. Gr-Grandma thought "her people were from the north of Ireland."

Abigail married the widower of her sister Charlotte.

(Bristol official record book #5, p.39)

According to the 1840 and 1851 England censuses, Abigail was born in Ireland. A posting on the Wray forum at genealogy.com says she was from Clonkirk, Ireland.

Abby Edwards age 48 housekeeper and James Edwards age 17 cotton spinner are listed on the ship's manifest, arriving in New York City on 27 August 1855. They sailed from Liverpool on the ship Thornton.

Notes:

I have estimated their year of marriage.

George — Betsey Unknown. [Group Sheet]