Sarah Eliza Casselman
Sarah Eliza Casselman Ouderkirk
Photo is from A Dutch Cooper’s Legacy, page 28, with original attributed to Fred Scott of Bala, Ontario
According to the Register of the Parishes of Williamsburg, Matilda, Osnabruck and Edwardsburg, Sarah Elisa Casselman was born March 16, 1823 in Williamsburg Township, Dundas County, to Adam Casselman and Catharina Merkle. I believe the Casselman men emigrated to North America as part of the Hessians, approximately 30,000 German troops hired by the British to help fight during the American Revolution who were principally drawn from the German state of Hesse-Cassel.
Sarah Elisa was baptized September 2, 1823. Elisa is the German spelling of Eliza. Elisa had two elder sisters who both appeared in the same baptismal register, Catharina and Rebecca. I don’t know if there were additional Casselman children. On some records, Sarah is referred to as Eliza and on others as Sarah. For my purposes, I have chosen to refer to her as Sarah Eliza. I think she was a formidable force and deserves a name with some gravitas.
As there were no census records at this time, the next record on which I found Sarah Eliza was her marriage to Henrik Takel Ouderkirk on August 14, 1849 in Madrid, New York. One of the things that has always nagged at me is that Sarah Eliza seemed rather old, at 26, to be marrying for the first time. Also, on the 1851/2 Census, there were a Matthew and Roseanah Ouderkirk that clearly were not her children with Henry because she and Henry did not marry until 1849 and both children were born before then. I speculated for years that these two children may have been children that Sarah Eliza brought into the marriage.
A few family stories over the years have suggested that Sarah Eliza had been married to a Matthew Markel/Markle/Merkley. While I found these stories of interest, I could never find proof that such a union existed. I *did* locate a Matthew Eurias Markel in the Williamsburg area at the time, but he married Almira Hutt and they and their family moved to Muskoka sometime in the 1860’s as they were located in Stephenson Township on the 1871 Census.
One day, while checking records on Family Search, I saw a posting for a younger Matthew Urias Markley. Thanks to the wonderful research efforts of Susan Keyes who sent the information in an email, I have learned the following:
Lynne Cook Supplied Christening record from St Peter's Lutheran Church, Williamsburg. Illegitimate birth. Name is Matthew Urias Markley son of Matthew Markley and Sarah Eliza Casselman born 19 Dec 1840, christened 13 Feb 1842.
This confirmed that Sarah Eliza had brought Matthew into her marriage with Henry. It also may explain why they married in New York rather than in their local Lutheran church. After discovering that the Markel connection was real, I checked for DNA matches and did indeed find several matches to descendants of Sarah Eliza’s son, Matthew Urias Markell. Most of that family uses the spelling Markell, though there are some deviations along the way. I have still had no luck tracking down Roseanah who was also known, I believe, as Catherine on the 1861 Census. Family lore suggests references to a Catherine as a daughter of Sarah Eliza, so I shall keep searching!
Photo from the collection of Nancy White
May have been taken in 1888 when Sarah Eliza's granddaughters, Sarah Rosanna and Lucy Ellen, were married
Sarah Eliza and Henry had six children together. Their eldest, John, and second eldest, Lucy remained here in Muskoka to raise their families, but Minnie, Sarah, Fred and George moved to the United States. Minnie and Sarah lived in Chicago, Fred in Michigan and George in Iowa.
Sarah Eliza was known for ministering to the ill and was a midwife here in Muskoka. She delivered her great grandsons, Francis Edmond Forth, Alfred Lemuel Forth, Joseph Olimer Elvin, and Frederick James Willson.
After Henry died, Sarah Eliza married David Scott on October 15, 1889. She was his third wife. David was a local farmer and was five years younger than Sarah Eliza. The marriage did not last very long. A "Release of Dower" document dated November 11, 1893, stated that Eliza Scott was given $300 for her "support and maintenance and all alimony" and that she would "agree to live separate and apart" from David Scott and discharged him of any further obligation. Eliza signed her name with an X indicating that she could not write. There is also a notation from the people who read the document to her so I believe she could not read either - or at least not well enough to understand this document.
On March 24, 1894, Eliza paid off the mortgage for her daughter, Lucy Ouderkirk Scott, in the amount of $236.50 for the property that was then located on Shier Street and is, in 2024, known as 73 Entrance Drive here in Bracebridge. I am sure she used the money she received from David Scott. The property then belonged to Eliza and her daughter, Lucy.
On the 1901 Canada Census, Eliza Scott was listed as widowed. It was not uncommon for women, at this time, to list themselves as widowed if their husbands had left them or if they had separated. David Scott, her estranged husband, was living with his son, Benjamin, during this census and was listed as married. David subsequently moved to Saskatchewan with Benjamin and his family and appeared again with them on the 1911 Saskatchewan Census. On that census, he was listed as widowed which, by then, he was. Eliza lived with Lucy and her husband Lemuel from the time of her separation from David Scott until her death in 1906.
The four-generation family photo below, from about 1905, was taken in front of the house that Lemuel built about 1902 on the property on Entrance Drive. The house remains in good repair and is a single family dwelling in 2024. I have copies of the original documents of sale of this property from Lucy Scott to Albert Tibbett in 1922.
Sarah Eliza Casselman Ouderkirk Scott, her daughters Lucy Ellen Ouderkirk Scott and Minnie Mabel Ouderkirk Breaton (I believe), Lucy’s daughters Lucy Ellen Scott Forth (my great grandmother) and Mary Louisa Scott Willson Mills Little and Lucy’s daughter-in-law Elizabeth Stephens Scott, married to Lucy Ellen Ouderkirk’s son John Frederick Scott. The missing Willson and Forth children, all males, were likely in the fields with the men. I have wondered where Victor Mills, Mary Louise’s youngest child, was at the time. He would have been four. My grandmother, Edna Forth Prosser, is not in the photo above as she was the next child to be born after Arthur Milton Forth. My grandmother and her younger sister, Viola, helped identify the people in the photo for Shirley Forth who used this photo in her book “A Dutch Cooper’s Legacy”. I have used a few different names based on my own research.
Sarah Eliza died May 11, 1906, and was buried in the Bracebridge United Church Cemetery. Buried beside her is her son-in-law, Lemuel Scott, although there is no headstone for him. You can see Henry’s headstone peeking out to the right just behind Sarah Eliza’s and that of her great grandson, Fred Willson, further to the right.
In Loving
Memory of
SARAH
ELIZA
SCOTT.
Born March
16.1822.
Died May.
11.1906.
Gone but not
Forgotten.
Sarah Eliza’s obituary appeared as written below in the Bracebridge Gazette May 17, 1906:
The hand of death continues to lay its victims low. On Monday morning another of Bracebridge’s early residents passed to the great beyond at the ripe age of 87 years and 2 months, in the person of Mrs. David Scott. In her death the town loses one who was a help to many in sickness, one who counted no sacrifice too great. She has been a resident of Bracebridge for thirty three years. Mrs. Scott’s maiden name was Sarah Eliza Casselman. She was born in the township of Winchester, Dundas County, in 1819. When twenty six years of age she married Henry I. (sic) Ouderkirk, who predeceased her by twenty years. Sixteen years ago she married David Scott, who still survives, together with eight children. Mrs. Lemuel Scott is a daughter. Besides there were thirty grand children and twenty four great grandchildren. The deceased lady has always been a consistent member of the Presbyterian church. The funeral took place Sunday afternoon.
Sarah Eliza's headstone and her obituary were not quite right about her birthday and age. She was born March 16 of 1823, according to her baptismal record, making her 83 years and 2 months old at the time of her death. It is not surprising that people who could not read or write would have trouble remembering how old they actually were.
As I said at the outset, I think Sarah Eliza was a formidable person. She defied conventions of the time and raised at least one child on her own until she married Henry and had six more children. Her obituary says that David Scott was still alive, “together with eight children”. As she and David did not share any children, I do wonder if the eighth child mentioned was indeed the elusive Roseanah/Catherine from the 1851/1861 censuses. Sarah Eliza and her children followed her husband to the hinterland of Muskoka in the early 1870’s when not even a road existed. Life for women as early settlers was NOT an easy one. From her obituary, one can see that she was generous of spirit and blessed with a healer’s touch. She looks strong and compassionate. I am honoured to come from a long line of very strong and determined women. I hope to pass this forward as my legacy.