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 1880s

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  Their home was small and originally made of logs which were plastered over many years later.

Thomas Swallow came from Yorkshire, England and Hannah Teed was the granddaughter of our Loyalist Ancestors, Alexander Peers and Mary Bolding and the daughter of Daniel Teed and Jerusha Peers.

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.   The following 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 North Cumberland Historical Society in Pugwash,  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, Eldora appears on some Nova Scotia Census' living with the Bragg Family in Collingwood - but not all.  There is an indication she may have spent time living with her Vincent grandparents, Joshua Vincent and Hannah Treen in Wallace.  In 1878, she married Walter Trescott in Massachusetts and the two settled in Attleboro.  They had three children and Eldora died between 1910 and 1920.

After 3 years on her own, Matilda married Charles Bragg of Collingwood on th 15th of July 1864 at River Philip.  The couple had 8 children,  Harvey Woodland, Albert Warren, William Ellis, Walter Leslie, Mary Jane, Charles Edward, John Thomas and Flora Mabel.

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 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.

Grave of Matilda Swallow Vincent Bragg

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 their son, William Ellis died in 1876 at the age of 6.  That must have been a horrible blow and Matilda, herself died in 1896.  She is buried in the little cemetery at Oxford Junction.

She was just one tiny woman but when she came to the Bragg family, she brought with her a colourful array of Loyalist ancestors, the Peers, the Teeds, the Vincents, the Treens and many others.  She is our sole link to this amazing history and we are forever grateful.