Discoveries in St Patrick's

St Patrick's District 3 had some interesting little morsels in it, as well as too many people (see previous blog).

First, there was John Leballeter, a 37-year old painter from Jersey in the Channel Islands, his wife and five children who were living on Lippincott Street. Well, they were until Sunday 13 January 1861, the day of census night. There was a note on the form that their house burnt down that day. There was nothing to say that they were in temporary accommodation elsewhere. I hope they got out safely.

Then, I met Thomas Carfrae--again. I have occasionally been doing a spot of transcripion on the Toronto Trust Burials Project which is digitizing the records of a number of Toronto cemeteries including Potter's Field and The Necropolis. When Potter's Field opened in 1829 or 1830 the first person to bury a relative was Thomas Carfrae. Between then and 1834 he buried several more, possibly two wives, several children and his mother. I began to wish he had spent more on food and less on burials. Recently I found myself looking at the early days of the Necropolis in 1854. Mrs Carfrae was arranging for the family to be moved from the Potter's Field to the new cemetery! My census find was a boilermaker in his early 40s, born in Scotland, with a wife and three children aged between 14 and 9, living on Spadina. Was he a son of the original Thomas Carfrae, I wonder.

Then there was the household of Patrick Cummins, "sergeant-major of police" living in the police house on Queen Street West. The position of each member of the family was listed in the Occupations column. There was a wife, two little daughters, another woman of 52 whose position I couldn't quite read, and his police sergeant, David Smith. On the right-hand page was a note to say that Patrick Cummins and David Smith were actually absent and on duty the night of the census, and Annastasia Summers wasn't in the house either. She was a prisoner in custody at the police station. Has anyone been looking for Annastasia Summers?