Matilda Swallow 1839 - 1896

Relationship to me:
1. Matilda Swallow & Charles Bragg
     2. John Thomas Bragg & Julia West Gamble
          3. Russell Mackie Bragg & Dorothy Madeleine Harrigan
                4. Me

Swallow Home at Swallow Hill
Gentleman seated is Matilda's brother
Stephen

Matilda Swallow was born on the 17th of April 1839 in Wentworth, Cumberland County, Nova Scotia to Thomas Swallow and Hannah Teed Swallow.  She was the second youngest of 11 children who grew up on the Swallow Farm at Swallow Hill on Swallow Road.  Their home was little more than one room with a roof and there is some evidence that the Swallow children did not learn to read or write.  On Matilda's sister, Charlotte's marriage document, she signs it with her mark X.

Matilda is the one  women in our family lines who is pivotal in connecting us to our deep Loyalist roots. She, through her mother Hannah Teed was the grand daughter and great grand daughter of two of the more prominent United Empire Loyalist families who settled in  the Wallace/Wentworth areas in 1783.

Her mother was the daughter of Daniel Teed and Jerusha Peers, both of whom were born in Westchester, New York and who grew up during the American Revolution.  After coming to Nova Scotia, the two married and Matilda was one of their descendants.

Probate Letter - page 1

Probate Letter - page 2

On her 20th birthday, Matilda married George Vincent, son of another prominent Loyalist family.  Just over a year later the couple had an infant daughter, Eldora  and then the next year George died after a long illness (consumption) at the age of 24,  leaving her in embarrassed circumstances and with an infant daughter.  In the binder labeled "Peers"at the Pugwash Historical Society is a copy of a letter from Matilda petitioning the probate Judge to let her to keep a cow which was a wedding gift from her family and two sheep and one lamb to allow her to provide for her child.

The infant daughter was Eldora and she lived with the Bragg family until marrying and moving to Massachusetts where she married and had a family.  No further mention is made of her in the family history.

After 3 years on her own, Matilda married Charles Bragg of Collingwood on the 15th of July 1864 at River Philip.  The couple had 7 children,  Harvey Woodland, Albert Warren, William Ellis, Walter Leslie, Mary Jane, Charles Edward and John Thomas.

Charles & Matilda's home in
Collingwood

My sense is that Matilda's life was not always a happy one.  Being widowed at 22 with an infant to care for must have been difficult in those days.  After George's death, there was a documented family battle over settling his debts and paying for Matilda's board and room at the home of Amos Purdy in Wallace River.  Joshua Vincent, George's father charged the 180 pound estate for 120 pounds belonging to her for his time and labour in putting in a crop at their New Annan Road farm and 45 pounds for the time and materials required to build a barn - leaving her with next to nothing.

Our family lore suggests that Charles Bragg was not an easy man to live with.  The fact that Matilda's daughter practically disappears from family documents; the fact that most of Charles and Matilda's children left home at a very early age and the fact that Charles remarried within months of Matilda's death support this   possibility.

In 1875, Charles and Matilda's only daughter, Mary Jane, died at the age of 8 and that must have been a horrible blow and Matilda, herself died in 1896.  She is buried in the little cemetery at Oxford Junction.

Grave of Matilda Swallow Bragg

She was just one tiny woman but when she came to the Bragg family, she brought with her a colourful past and a link to our Loyalist Ancestors.