Keeping it in the Family

Forgive me, this is rather well understood by most of us, but it is something I have been wanting to put in words for quite some time. Really it's incidental but at least the thought is captured.

In Florence, Washington, Northwest of Everett, along the Stillaguamish River, in the Northwest section of Snohomish County and near Stanwood, four small adjacent farms came into existence beginning early in the 1880's. Each one of these farms had owners that were born and raised in and around Chatham, New Brunswick, Canada, and all near the same age. Of course two were McGinnis brothers, another a cousin, Robert Ferguson. These three were from Chatham proper. A short distance away along the Miramichi River was the small community of Bartibog.

Back to Florence. The fourth farm in the line of farms belonged to a James Hall, and we have found records of his family in the Bartibog parish register. James Hall it seems was the first to come to the States and he shows up in the 1880 Federal census in what eventually became the town of Stanwood. As best as can be determined he began his farming in Florence on homesteaded land in the mid 1880's and preceded the others to the area by at least ten years. He remained a bachelor until about 1891.

This was the year that Robert Ferguson, a bachelor all his life, and James McGinnis arrived in Florence to begin their farming years. James married Mary Ellen Donahue in Chicago in 1883, Hugh married sister Catherine Donahue in Chicago in 1887. Regardless, James Hall I suspect was the "Pied-Piper" that led three cousins, James, Robert Ferguson and eventually brother Hugh out of the Seattle area to follow him north some one hundred miles to begin farming.

Now suddenly here in 1891, the bachelor James Hall, from Bartibog, married another Donahue sister, Sarah, and the Irish clan settled down to raise families side by side, and all related in one way or another. The sisters must have enjoyed living their lives out so close to one another. Tell me there wasn't a lot of matchmaking tendencies in the personalities of the three Donahue sisters especially. Tongue in cheek, regarding the McGinnis brothers, maybe they wanted company in their misery and they too joined in to capture James Hall. We will never know for sure but just the circumstances present a good story in my mind. As for the bachelor life of Robert Ferguson, well he steadfastly maintained it all his life. Perhaps they ran out of Donahues. There was at least one more eligible sister still available in Wisconsin but probably a bit too young or far too smart to commit her life to milking cows at 5 AM each morning.