There are probably too many Samuels among the Corbetts! My
father was Samuel and his grandfather was Samuel and his great great grandfather
was probably Samuel as well. Samuel appears in combination with John as
in John Samuel and Samuel William and a great many other combinations.
Samuel is a good name and a worthy name but it has led to some monumental
confusion. When I found the marriage certificate for my great grandfather
and great grandmother Corbett I got a real rush. There were the names Samuel
Corbett and Margaret Ann Graham married by a Wesleyan Minister, Charles Deckill on Nov. 27, 1872. That was a Wednesday in 1872 and in 1979 when
my daughter, Julie, and I found that record, it was also a Wednesday. Since
then I have found much of interest in the Corbett family.
James Corbett and his wife Jane Breakey left Ireland in 1822 and that
year arrived at lot number 5 of the Nerepis Road with 5 children. The Nerepis
Road or as it is currently known, Lawfield Road, was really a trail as
was the road from Hampstead to Headline over which many have traveled to
get to their land allotments. They were preceded to the Headline Ridge
by their daughter, Margaret Corbett [b. 1803] and son-in-law William Madill
[b. 1792] by 3 years. The Madills occupied lot number 8 on the north west
side of the road. The Corbett's lot was further east and on the south side
of the road in a forest of trees. They must have been industrious people
since their land grant petition shows that they had cleared 32 acres, built
a house, a barn, a stable and had acquired livestock in a period of 4 years.
As well they helped newly arriving immigrants settle into their new homes
in the wilderness. Their eldest son, Samuel jr. had acquired a wife, Elizabeth
Sproule, and occupied a I 00 acre lot and cleared 4 acres of it when he
petitioned for his land in 1826. It was a poor piece of property that was
bisected nearly its entire length by a stream and later he abandoned it.
James Corbett also petitioned for land in 1826; so father, family and eldest
son were putting down roots on properties that would have dwarfed their
holdings in County Monaghan, Ireland where there is evidence that James
Corbett was a flax grower and processor. The production of linen from flax
became an industrial process about 1815 and the cottage industry that had
provided income for the family died. Ireland was a crowded and violent
place at that time and with a reduced ability to earn a living it became
evident that substantial change was a necessity.
There was another group of Corbetts who were led by another Samuel Corbett.
Samuel Corbett [b. abt. 1802] and Elizabeth Mills [b. abt. 1798], his wife,
left County Monaghan, Ireland and settled at Oak Point in 1823 and they
stayed there until 1837 with their 9 children.
Eventually they moved to the Headline Ridge and so Samuel and Elizabeth
Mills Corbett came to live near Samuel and Elizabeth Sproule Corbett. They
attended the same church and both men were active in the Orange Lodge.
Both couples had children and both couples named their second child Margaret.
I think that the opportunity for present day confusion concerning the Samuel
Corbetts is manifest.
It is my speculation, based on the preponderance of evidence, that these
Samuels were first cousins and that James Corbett [b. 1778] and Samuel
Corbett [b. abt 1776], who was killed in battle in 1806, were brothers.
We have 2 Samuel Corbetts both born about 1802 but one in Ireland and the
other in England. It appears that their fathers James and Samuel named
their first child after their father following the Celtic tradition of
naming the first son after the paternal grandfather. Since these 2 new
fathers, James and Samuel were separated by many miles one living in Ireland
and the other in England it is not too great a stretch to conclude that
they were both honoring a respected elder without the knowledge of what
the other was doing. Did they have a common father named Samuel? I think
they did.
These two families however were joined when John M. [Mills] Corbett
[b. 1825] married Jane Corbett [b. 1828]. John's grandfather was Samuel
Corbett [b.abt. 1776] and Jane's grandfather was James Corbett [b.abt.
1778]. So whether by blood and or marriage, virtually all the Corbetts
who hailed from Queens County are related.
Land tended to pass from one branch of a family to another and that
is how some of the land grants, that were extinguished in 1952, had been
in the same family from the early 1800's until expropriation. Jessie Isabel
McKinney Corbett, widow of James Elbridge Corbett signed the document of
extinguishment in July of 1952 and put an end to a 130 year occupation
of James Corbett's land grant by members of the Corbett family. Direct
descendants of James Corbett and Jane Breakey owned the land until the
1880's. When James died he left his grant to his son William and William
sold it to his son, my great grandfather, Samuel for $5.00. My great grandfather
finally sold it to James Elbridge Corbett after Samuel had established
himself in a business in Saint John. Members of my family, as did many
others, moved to the city and operated a variety of businesses and engaged
in a variety of other worthwhile activities. The movement away from Queens
County may have started, in my family, with William Madill and Margaret
Corbett who in 1834 sold their grant to John Murphy and were off to Ohio.
Their son Joseph MediII became a prominent citizen of Chicago. He was elected
mayor in 1871 while he was the owner publisher of the Chicago Tribune.
Another more recent example is Frances Corbett, a teacher, who moved to
Dunneville, Ontario in the 1920's and his son Ronald Corbett later became
a Superintendent of Schools in Sault Sainte Marie, Ontario. Teaching is
a calling that many in the family have had- including me, and my son, my
Aunt Jennie Corbett Selby and Otty Corbett who was a teacher and a soldier.
There are many others.
Some of the family stayed in Queens County and pursued farming and lumbering
as well as other vocations. Henry Maxwell Corbett [b. 1852] was a blacksmith,
John M. Corbett was a magistrate, Samuel was a farmer and a Roads Commissioner.
James and Samuel Corbett served as officers in the Queens County Militia.
Later years have produced nurses, engineers, salespeople, artists and politicians.
Political decisions were taken in the nineteen fifties that have effected
all of us. There is a certain sadness that effects those who were never
able to experience a living community along the Lawfield Road and also
a quiet resentment among those who were forced to leave. The result of
the decisions to expel the people from their homes and land has dispersed
the Corbetts and other related families broadly in New Brunswick, Canada,
and the world. I am sure that all the Samuels would be sadden by the loss
of land but proud of the way in which their progeny have coped with the
expulsion and the sense of community that still exists among the families
who settled the area and made it home. Even Corbetts who were never able
to know the life along the Nerepis Road are proud of their heritage.
