A LONG TIME AGO – 11 November 1887

 Editor Tribune:- My letter in your issue of Oct. 7 spoke of Mr. and Mrs. Fawcet, the newly married couple whose respective ages were about 65 years, and who were spending their honeymoon on board ship during the voyage to Quebec in the year 1828. I said I might take them up again, which I now do in an abridged way.

Mr. Fawcet had been in Canada before, and had there married a second wife, after which he returned to England, leaving wife No. 2 behind. Mr. F. was a great professor of piety, which enabled him the better to carry his points. Wishing again to return to Canada, but being minus the means, he thought it expedient to fall in love with an old lady about his own age, who, with her hired help, was making a comfortable living in conducting a laundry business in the city of York, England, and, with her little savings and household effects, could furnish the means of shipment to Canada. So he married wife No. 3, and these are the parties mentioned in my first letter. Upon their arrival at Brockville in May, 1828, Mrs. F. No. 3 found a Mrs. F. No. 2 and Mrs. F. No. 3 not being a convert to Mormon faith, deserted her liege lord and master, and hired to a respectable family by the name of McDonald to do housework for one dollar a week. This family were very kind to her. After working for them over a year, they paid her all her wages, made her a present of twelve dollars and other things, and she left for Quebec in the hope of getting a passage back to England, which at that time was much more difficult than now, as there were no more regular passenger ships. The only chance was by a lumber ship, and that was difficult for a lone woman. A man could berth with the sailors in the forecastle, or with the captain in the cabin.

But upon her arrival at Quebec she was taken ill with the fever and confined to her bed several weeks. The expenses incurred took most of her money. When she had so far recovered as to be able to walk out a little in the street, one day she met a military officer. Her English dress and flour-scoop bonnet attracted his attention and he looked very intently upon her, so much so that after passing she turned to look after him, when he had done the same to look at her; he then came up to her and said: “My good woman, I did look at you for there is something in your appearance I could not help doing so; may I ask who you are, or where are you from?” “My name is Mrs. Fawcet, and I am from the city of York, in England, but when in England my name was Mrs. Jib.” “Yes, that accounts for it. When I was a little boy I used to come with our nursemaid to your house on Bishophill after linen.” “Indeed, sir, and what is your name, sir?” “My name is Crompton.” “Good Lord, are you young Master Crompton?” After learning a little of her history, the street and number where to find her, he said he would call, which he did, and brought her a bottle of wine. He learned her history; how she had come there; interested himself in her behalf, secured her a passage to Hull; gave her a letter to Mrs. Crompton, his mother, wishing her to give her some of the furniture lying in the garret of their big house in Micklegate, and otherwise to assist her in establishing herself in her former business; all of which was done, and when I called upon her a short time afterwards I found her not in the same house she had left on her marriage with Fawcet, but in the next house to it, with two hired girls and the necessary apparatus for carrying on her former business, and this account I had from herself. What became of Mr. F. I never learned.

Welland Tribune

11 November 1887