Part 12: Thomas settles down?

1191 Islington Street from the railway line
and off Barberry Lane

We have now returned from our three week and 2,500 mile drive around NE America and into Canada. Having found and visited both the house and grave of Thomas Swinfield, I now had a better idea of his life in Portsmouth during the 40 years that he lived in that delightful town.

The deeds of Rockingham County show that he had purchased the land, where the houses on Islington Street still stand, in the early 1870s. The other boundaries of the site, set out in a document of 1874, were what is now Barberry Lane to the east and the Concord & Portsmouth Railway (later the Boston & Maine Railway) to the rear. There he built the first house which he was to leave to his daughter and grandson in his will. The second house constructed on the land was to become the residence of William Warburton and his family by 1920. It is a pity that no-one was at home at 1207 Islington when we visited. I must contact the current residents to see if they can send me images of its interior to see where he lived. The lady, who now lives at no. 1191, knew little about its early history and no. 1205 is now occupied by high school students.

City directories record Thomas G. Swinfield as a pedlar at what was then numbered 71 Islington from as early as 1861. He later appeared consistently as a resident in that road, sometimes called “Creek” as that is where it leads, working as a farmer to his death in 1893. I still have no idea what became of his “second” wife Amy. 

Divorce of Thomas
and Chrlotte Swinfield 1887

By 1886, his “third” marriage appears to have broken down as his wife Charlotte was boarding away from the marital home at 48 Pleasant Street near the middle of town. In fact, Thomas divorced her in January 1887 on the grounds of “abandonment” (the pot calling the kettle black?). This discovery was made in the NEHGS Library in Boston. Sincere thanks to David Dearborn for his tour of its extensive collections.    

1900 census of Pleasant Street, Portsmouth, showing Charlotte Fraser

Charlotte Swinfield was no longer listed after 1892, reverting to her previous surname of Fraser. At the 1900 census, she was 85 and still lived at that address with her son by her first marriage and her daughter-in-law. They had left Canada in 1850.  

Morley Button Factory,
Islington Street, Portsmouth

Whilst buying flowers to put on the grave, at a florist just off Islington Street, we were intrigued by a large building now converted into a studio for artists. On enquiring what it had been used for, we were told that it was the old button factory. Amazingly, both William John and Edwin Swinfield Warburton, Thomas’s grandsons, worked at Morley Button Factory and William died on the premises in 1930!  Another fortuitous and great discovery!

Part 9: Seeking a better life?

Great-great-grandfather, Thomas Swinfield, baptised in 1808 at Earl Shilton, was last heard of living at Town Street, Calverton, Notts, living with Maria, his “wife”, and their 11 year-old daughter, Elizabeth. There is no record of a death of either Thomas or Maria in England and Wales and no reference to a marriage for their child. None of these three can be identified living here at the time of the 1861 and subsequent censuses. Had they disappeared or changed their names?

Thomas's naturalisation card of 1864

1860 census of Portsmouth, New Hampshire 

After having looked for the fate of this man for nearly 40 years, since beginning my study of the Swinfield family, Ancestry’s index to American census records revealed the solution to this mystery. Thomas G. Swinfield, aged 52 and a stocking weaver, was living in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in June 1860. With him were Maria Swinfield, who was 53, and John and Elizabeth Warburton, all born in England. They had emigrated, presumably to find a better life on the other side of the Atlantic. The same website includes an image of this naturalisation record issued at Exeter, New Hampshire, on 5^th March 1867. He had arrived in the US on 11^th June 1854. The card even records his, previously unknown, date of birth as 2^nd April 1808! There is no online record which tells us on what ship he, and presumably his family, sailed and from where.

1880 census of Portsmoth, New Hampshire

1876 Marriage

In 1870, the census shows that he was still in Portsmouth, but was now apparently married to Amy, also an English woman. By 1880, his wife had changed once more, she now being Charlotte from Nova Scotia. Records for that state reveal that at least he waited for the death of Sarah at home in England in 1862, before he married Ammy Welch in 1866 and Charlotte Ann Fraser in 1876. Was he made aware that his estranged wife had passed away, leaving him free to marry again? Thomas does not seem to have been too successful in relationships. By 1888, the Portsmouth city directories indicate that Mrs Charlotte Swinfield had left the house on Islington Street to board at 48 Pleasant. Strangely, no deaths or remarriages are recorded for any of the women who he lived with in America. They are not listed in censuses after they separated either! What became of them, I wonder?

Thomas's death in 1893

With the help of David Dearborn of the New England Historic Genealogical Society in Boston, I learned that Thomas G. Swinfield did well there. He was recorded as a party to 11 land transfer deeds from 1869 to 1892. These can all be viewed online. In 1894, his grandson, William J. Warburton was signatory to another document which stated that Thomas’s will was proved on 9^th January 1894. 

David abstracted the will, a copy of which is in the NEHGS Library. Thomas bequeathed the westerly half of his house to his daughter, Elizabeth, and the eastern half to his grandson. The property still stands to this day on the corner of Islington Street and Barberry Lane.

Thomas died on 1^st June 1893, aged 85 years and 2 months of “old age” and was buried in Proprietor’s Cemetery, Portsmouth. At last, I know what happened to great-great-granddad!