Harvey Wait
ID # 3914, (1811-)
| Father | Jonathan Wait (1774-1859) |
| Mother | Martha Smith (1773-1856) |
| Birth | Harvey Wait was born on 24 May 1811 at United States. |
| Marriage | He married Jane Smith on 29 November 1837 at Dumfries Township, Gore District. According to Norma Huber, Waterloo, 1886, in her Marriages of Galt and Area Inhabitants With Some Strays, Harvey Wait and Jane Smith were married on November 29, 1837, and sources this to microfilm of First Church, Galt, marriages. Dan Walker & Fawne Stratford-Devai, in their work The Marriage Registers of Upper Canada/Canada West, Vol. 9, Part 2, Wellington District, 2000, Global Heritage Press, page 161, extract the information for this marriage from microfilm identified as LCM 30 and 31 as found in the United Church of Canada Archives. (The placing by the authors of this publication of First Church's marriage records from this era in the Wellington District is a bit odd. First Church was in Galt, a town in Dumfries Township in the Gore District. Galt is now a part of Cambridge, Ontario, the northern parts of which do in fact sit in what was at one time the Wellington District. First Church still exists.) They show the marriage of 'Hervey' Wait to Jane Smith, both of Dumfries, on November 29, 1837, and name the witnesses as Smyth Wait and Adam Smith. 'Smyth' Wait will be Smith Wait, Harvey's brother. (An examination of the handwriting of Smith Wait's name on the marriage registration as it appears on microfilm GS2987 shows it to indeed have been written as Smith Wait. The reel GS2987 is to be found at the Archives of Ontario. This is not as well microfilmed as the United Church reel LCM-30. ) The one useful piece of information that does appear on the original First Church page and which is to be seen on GS2987 is that the marriage was performed in Dumfries after the publication of banns. This still doesn't tell us the exact location of the marriage, but it was probably at a family farm in Dumfries Township. Also, the date of the marriage as transcribed, 29 November, 1837, is almost certainly correct, though the handwriting for the month is a smeared mess. |
| Note | See notes under Harvey's father, Jonathan, with regard to a record of land ownership for Harvey in the Gore of Beverly. See page 35, Family Records of the Descendants of Thomas Wait of Portsmouth, Rhode Island, by John Casson Wait, 1904. Recorded here is Jonathan Wait, b. 1773. He is said to be the son of Jeremiah Wait, 1749-1823, and Hannah Matteson, who is said to have died in 1839. Jonathan is said to be of 'Dumfried, Ont.' and to have had a son Henry who was born in Blenheim, Ont., and who had a son Rienzi at Washington, Ont. There is some garbled information here, but, firstly, we may take John Casson Wait's information about the grandparents of Harvey Wait as being likely, or approximately, correct. They are said to have been Loyalists and to have settled in Black Creek, Ontario. We may reasonably say that their son Jonathan settled in Dumfries Township. The 1861 census for Blenheim Township, Oxford County, shows a Henry Wait, so indexed, age 48, born in the United States. The handwriting on the census form is such that one might be forgiven for interpreting Harvey's name as Henry, but Harvey is the more reasonable reading of the handwriting. Harvey did indeed have a son Rienza. Harvey does not appear in Blenheim in 1851, either on the every-person portion of the census or the agricultural pages. The agricultural pages have the look of being incomplete, but he does not appear to have been in residence in Blenheim as of January of 1852 when the 1851 census was taken. He was there in 1861 and 1871. Harvey was still in Blenheim as of the 1881 census. He has not been found thereafter and a death registration for him has not been found. We must, however, believe him to be deceased by the time of the 1891 census, for his wife Jane is with son George in Blenheim and she is shown as a widow, age 73. In this enumeration, their name is spelled as Wate. Harvey's wife Jane died in 1901. Her death was reported by son Orchan, but a place of burial for Harvey and Jane has not been found. |
Children of Harvey Wait and Jane Smith |
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| Last Edited | 6 Jun 2018 |