Map of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick & Prince Edward Island c. 1890

For this profile, I picked a 3rd-great-granduncle who shares my birthday (albeit about 140 years apart), James Gilbert Wiggins (1815-1903), born in Gagetown, Queens County, New Brunswick, to Jacob Fowler & Elizabeth Ruth (Slocum) Wiggins. [1]

Thus far, I’ve been spoiled by Canadian provincial archives online collections, especially those for New Brunswick, where most of my loyalist families ended up in 1783). In this WIGGINS line, I discovered a few folks who settled on Prince Edward Island, a completely new research locale for me. Prince Edward Island is not as easy to research, thank goodness, there are good church records [2] and between those, census records, [3] and Find A Grave, I was able to sketch an outline of the James G. Wiggins story.

James never knew his father, Jacob F. Wiggins, who died the same year he was born. As he was the youngest among 17 children, he had a mother and lots of older siblings to help care for him. His older brother, the Reverend Abraham Van Guelder Wiggins (Rev. A. V. G. Wiggins) (1804-1856) was perhaps, a key influence in James’s life, as he  lived on Prince Edward Island and officiated at James’s marriage there to Eleanor Compton Green in 1840.[4]

James and Eleanor first lived in Queens County, New Brunswick as their daughters, Virginia Esther (1841) and Sarah Amelia (1843)  were born there. The move to Prince Edward Island occurred after Sarah’s birth and before that of William in 1845, who baptized by his uncle, the Rev. A. V. G. Wiggins. Elizabeth in 1848 and John in 1850 were also baptized by their uncle into the Anglican Church. 

The Wiggins family of Prince Edward Island added four more children: Abraham (1855), Helen (1857), Samuel (1859) and James (1864). James was said to have become “a wealthy farmer and manufacturer of Summerside Prince Edward Island” around 1876 when E. Stone Wiggins published The History of Queens County in the newspaper, the Watchman. Thus far, I haven’t found evidence to corroborate that assertion. I expect there is some sitting in an archive on the island.

Eleanor Compton (Green) Wiggins died at 65 years in 1882, [5] having given birth to nine children and seen her youngest reach manhood. Her widowed husband, married a year later.

James, 68, traveled back to New Brunswick to wed a woman 28 years his junior, Eliza A. Ballantine in Westfield, Kings County. The Daily Telegraph of Saint John, NB carried the following:

m. Westfield (Kings Co.) 7th inst., St. James Church, by Rev. A.V. Wiggins, A.B., rector, assisted by Rev. H.T. Parlee, curate, James G. WIGGINS, Esq., Alberton, P.E.I. / Eliza A. BALLENTINE d/o late Thomas BALLENTINE, Esq., Westfield.[6]

Did you notice the officiant is Rev. A. V. Wiggins? Not Rev. A. V. G. Wiggins, James’s brother (he died in 1856). I believe, this is Abraham Valentine Wiggins, James and Eleanor’s third son. The next step is to prove it.

Sources:

[1] Wiggins, E. Stone. The History of Queens County. NB: Queens County Historical Society, 1993. Rec. Date: 8 Jul 2016.

[2] Finding Your Canadian Story (blog by Candace McDonald) | Prince Edward Island Ancestors: PEI Church Records on Family Search

[3] Library and Archives Canada – Genealogy and Family History.

[4] “Prince Edward Island Marriage Registers, 1832-1888,” FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QVBJ-KJ7Z : 11 March 2018), citing , Prince Edward Island, Canada, Public Archives, Charlottetown; FHL microfilm 1,630,091.

[5] Find A Grave (http://www.findagrave.com/ : accessed 9 Mar 2020), Find A Grave Memorial no. 58191529, citing Saint John’s Anglican Church Cemetery, Saint-Eleanors, Prince County, Prince Edward Island, Canada.

[6] Provincial Archives of New Brunswick (http://archives.gnb.ca/ : accessed 8 Mar 2020); Daniel F Johnson’s New Brunswick Newspaper Vital Statistics. Daniel F. Johnson : Volume 59, Number 521, Date June 8 1883, County Saint John, Place Saint John, Newspaper The Daily Telegraph.

When I discover an ancestor who spent time in an asylum, it’s a moment for reflection and gratitude for being born into times with a more sophisticated take, and better tools to address mental health care.

The former Lunatic Asylum in St. John, New Brunswick (McCord Museum photo, 1988)

Robert Patterson Holmes was a son of Isaiah & Jane (Kincaid / Kincade) Holmes, born in Studholm Parish, Kings County, New Brunswick, around the year 1860. Robert grew up in a household filled with boys, a few older and a few younger than himself. Like almost everyone living in this rural area, Robert’s father was a farmer.

Chores kept everyone busy, from spring plowing and sowing, to animal care, to building, fence and tool maintenance (while crops grew) through the busy harvest time. All the Holmes boys contributed to supporting the family farm. They likely also spent some time in school, at least enough to learn to read and write. As Free Will Baptists, [1] the family likely attended church services when able.

The 1881 Canada census shows the Isaiah and Jane Holmes’s household included three sons, aged 24 (Abraham) to 11 (George). Robert (21 years), however, was not in his father’s house, but living in a house next door with his slightly older brother, Jacob, and both engaged in farming. [2]

At first, I didn’t think it was relevant that the family split into separate dwellings. It is normal for young men to move out of the parental home (though, usually, it is when they marry). In retrospect, it’s possible Robert began to display symptoms of mental illness. If he had become disruptive, or otherwise hard to live with, moving him out, may have been a way to maintain peace, while keeping close watch over Robert’s condition.

In the next decade, Robert’s brother Jacob married, and for the 1891 census, Robert was a member of his parents’ household again. The record shows he was a blacksmith, a valuable trade for the family farm and the larger community, and he was earning wages.[3]

The records go silent for about seven years, until February 1898, when Robert Patterson Holmes, age 38, married Jane E. Fanjoy, age 18. The couple obtained a license, and were wed at the residence of Rev. B. H. Nobles in Sussex (Kings County). Rather than the customary, two marriage witnesses (often family members or friends), there was only one signature, of a May Fayette.[4]

Three years later, I did not find Jane in the 1901 Canada census, but I did find Robert no longer in Kings County, but in in Saint John City; no longer blacksmith or farmer, but   among the “Names of Insane in Provincial Insane Asylum”  –

Line 46: Robert Holmes | Married | Born 1863 | Age 38 | Born New Brunswick | [No religion] | Laborer. [5]

In 1904, two documents record his death, the first I looked at was the Saint John Burial Permit No. 777:

Date of Death: June 16, 1904 – Robert P. Holmes – 43 years – White – Male – Married – Residence: Sussex, N. B. – Place of Death: Provincial Lunatic Asylum – Place of Birth: Sussex, N.B. – Occupation: Farmer – Place of Interment: Sussex, N.B. – Nature of Disease or Cause of Death: Asthenia – Physician: J. Boyle Travers, M.D. – Undertaker: E. Hallett – City of St. John – June 17, 1904 – (signed) E. Hallett [6]

The second document, the Provincial Death Return, reports mostly the same information, slightly differently:

Robert Holmes – Residence: Sussex – When and Where Died: June 16th, 1904, P. Hospital – Male – Age 42 – Occupation: Farmer – Where Born: N.B. – Religious Denomination: Episcopalian – Cause of Death: Asthenia – Duration: 4 mos – Physician Attending: Medical Supt. – Signature of Party Making Return: J. Boyle Travers, M.D. [7]

I thought, perhaps, the official (Dr. Travers) tried to water down the stigma for the survivors by calling the institution in which he died, the Provincial Hospital, rather than, as the undertaker (E. Hallett) called it, the “Provincial Lunatic Asylum.” That wasn’t the case. As it happened, times were changing, and in 1903, the official name was changed to the Provincial Hospital. The doctor was correct and the undertaker acted out of habit.

The case of Robert Holmes was a lesson in jumping to conclusions, especially in dramatic and tragic circumstance. I was reminded that doing additional research will provide context and facts that result in sound conclusions.

I will likely never learn more about the short and difficult life of Robert Holmes (or his young wife who seems to have disappeared), however, he found peace. And he was not buried on the grounds, as were patients that had no family. Robert came home to rest in his native Sussex, King County, New Brunswick.

Sources:

Provincial Lunatic Asylum at St. John; http://www.asylumprojects.org/index.php?title=Provincial_Lunatic_Asylum_at_St._John

Free Will Baptist; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Will_Baptist

Lunatic Asylum photo courtesy of the McCord Museum, 690, Sherbrooke West
Montréal (Québec) H3A 1E9; mccord-museum.qc.ca

St. John, New Brunswick and the Origins of Canadian Mental Health Care; https://loyalist.lib.unb.ca/atlantic-loyalist-connections/saint-john-new-brunswick-and-origins-canadian-mental-health-care