Father and mother of Jessie Waters, grandparents of Cora Spargo née Waters
Mary Ann was one of nine children born to William and Ann Foxwell née Harris in Mullion on the Lizard. you can read about William And Ann here
Henry Gartrell was born in St Just in 1815 to Benjamin and Martha Gartrell née Mitchell
A story about the naming of children. If you look closely at the family tree above you will see that there were two children christened Susan, the first one dying aged 2. This was surprisingly common in Victorian England. Strange and unsettling to us, but it is thought by some historians to be a way that families honoured the memory of the children who had died.
In the 1845 Estate Survey he was sub leasing land at Higher Kemyell from his brother Benjamin, who was farming at Middle Kemyell. All the land was leased from the St Aubyn family (owners of St Michaels Mount)
In the 1851 Census Henry is listed as farming 40 acres at Higher Kemyell with one farm labourer.
In 1853 Henry and Mary Ann are living at Pendrea Farm in St Buryan and were still there in 1861 where the Census shows Henry farming 200 acres with the help of his eldest three sons and three farm servants. Mary Ann had one house servant to help her run the household of 15 people.
The 1871 Census shows Henry has returned to farming at Higher Kemyell. The household now numbers five family members and one servant. Martha and Enoch Williams farming the other farm. She was his niece (Benjamin and Ann’s daughter.) Also farming with Henry was his brother William, with wife Mary and two children. According to local historian Jim Hoskins, the hamlet could not support three families so William went to farm at Bejowans in Sancreed and Enoch and Martha went in 1874 to run the pub The Wink in Lamorna.
Hoskings, Jim People & places in Paul Parish. J M Hoskings 2005 p63
They had nine children who survived to adulthood, eight of whom emigrated, four to the USA, and four to Australia. The ninth, their daughter Jessie and her husband Joseph went to the USA for a few years.
Retiring from farming in 1885 Henry and Mary Ann went to live in Marazion..
Henry died in 1891 aged 76.
Death of Mr Henry Gartrell.—On Saturday about midday, Mr Henry Gartrell, (formally of Kemyel farm, Paui, and Pendrea, St Buryan,) was taken suddenly with seizure and lay all Sunday and part of Monday in a precarious condition. James Mudge, being called, was prompt in his attendance, but gave little hope for the recovery his patient, who is an aged man. He will remembered for his zeal as a supporter of the Buryan ploughing matches, and for the hospitality shown on those annual festivities at Pendrea—kindness to visitors, neighbours, and strangers in which Mrs Gartrell sympathised and joined. Mr Henry Gartrell died on Monday, at 3 p.m. never became conscious after he was taken ill. Mr Gartrell was 76.
His Estate was valued at £1088 19s 6d, which would have purchased approximately 122 cows!
Joseph and Jessie returned from the USA after the death of Henry. Mary Ann died aged 84 in 1899, at Middle Kemyell where Jessie and Joseph were now farming.
To read more about the emigration of the Gartrell family and those last years, read Joseph and Jessie’s story here.
This was not the first generation of the family to follow an emigration pattern. Mary Ann was the only member of her family not to leave Cornwall for America in the 1840s. The story of the Foxwells is told here.
If these two women had not remained in Cornwall, none of us descendants would exist …..