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KERR
Robert Kerr
died 22 March 1866 Age 49 years
Isabella Weir
Died 4 April 1892 Age 72 years
Children
Henry Kerr
died Aug 28, 1848 Age 3
1840 - 1864
Robert Kerr
died Sept 2, 1848 Age 2 yrs 2 mo.
Thomas W Kerr
died Apr 9, 1850 Age 5 yrs. 6 Mos. 16 days
"On 1 December 1840 Robert Kerr had married Isabella Weir, daughter of Thomas and Isabella Weir of County Sligo, Ireland, immigrants to Upper Canada in 1837. According to the 1842 Assessment Roll, he had cleared 16 acres of bush and by the 1851 Agricultural Census Returns, Robert had 50 of his 100 acres under cultivation and owned among other things 12 head of cattle and 20 sheep. The family's first house was almost certainly log, but by the 1861 Census Returns, Robert Kerr had built the present two storey sturdy fieldstone farm house fronting onto Mountsberg Road.
A large family of ten children were born between 1841 and 1858. Robert appears to have been a prominent citizen in the Mountsberg community, listed as a member of the Reserve Militia in 1864-65 and Recording Steward and Secretary of the Methodist Episcopal Church Sabbath School until his death on 22 March 1866 at the age of 49 years, when he was described as "a kind husband, affectionate father, good neighbour and a friend to the church. Robert Kerr was also a prosperous man when he died. Beside the home farm which in 1861 had been valued at $4,000. there were implements at $100, Horses at $200 and Livestock at $574. He also owned 100 acres of Lot 12, Concession 12, as well as two lots in Freelton and another parcel of land outside Wentworth County. He was buried in the Mountsberg Methodist Episcopal Church Cemetery, near to the three young sons who had predeceased him.
Isabella Kerr, Robert's widow followed the wishes of her husband's will and stayed on the farm which became the property of John R. Kerr when he reached the age of 21 years in 1868. About 1875 John married Annie McLean of Puslinch Township and a year later moved to Brantford where he owned a glove factory and ran a coal business.
William Henry Kerr, the second son farmed both the Kerr properties after his brother left for Brantford, living with his mother and younger sister, Louisa on the home farm. During the early years of the 1880s, as members of the Kerr family began to disperse from the Mountsberg area, Thomas Woolsey, a young man who had been working for his brother-in-law, George Stanley Nicholson of Concession 6, East Flamborough Township came to work for the Kerrs as a farm labourer.
In 1883 William purchased his brother John's other East Flamborough property of Lot 12, Concession 12 and a year later married Jane Reid of Georgetown. About the same time Thomas Woolsey met and began courting Susan Smye who worked for Mrs William Laking at their Mountsberg mill. On 23 December 1885 they were married at Grace Anglican Church Waterdown and moved into the Kerr home farm. Within a year, William Kerr and his wife moved to a farm in the Scotch Block area of Esquesing Township, Halton County, leaving Isabella in the care of the Woolseys who stayed on, planning to make it their home.
When the 1891 Census Returns were compiled in April of that year, the household consisted of Thomas Woolsey, his wife, Susan, their first child, Margaret aged 4 years, Isabella
Kerr aged 66 years and a 14 year old Irish boy as farm help. According to Woolsey Family History, Isabella Kerr continued to live in the house under the terms of her husband's will until almost the end of her life when she moved to Brantford and died at her son John's house on 4 April 1892. With the death of Isabella, the Kerr connection to the house ended and a year later John R. Kerr sold the property to Thomas Woolsey for $5,000. Thomas was forced to take a mortgage of $4,000 with Jonathan Wingrove of Mountsberg which was not discharged until almost 50 years later."
Source: February 2000
THE WATERDOWN-EAST FLAMBOROUGH HERITAGE SOCIETY
Photography © Michael Wingrove 20 May 2002
Index Old Methodist Cemetery, Mountsberg Ontario
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