Quick Christmas update

Season's Greetings to all Children of Moorfield!
The big news is Marilyn Karlson (granddaughter of Mary Crozer Bryson) has finished the family genealogy (or rather had reached a stage where she was content to have it printed) and several copies were delivered to our house on an extremely cold night on 21 December. It comes to 258 pages excluding appendices of shipping lists, maps, family trees and photographs. The research that has gone into it and the information Marilyn has brought together is quite staggering. It's now officially a family heirloom in its own right!

I'll be distributing copies to branches of the family here over the coming weeks so maybe I'll get to see some of you. And I'll make sure the Canadian and Swedish Croziers aren't forgotten. In the meantime, enjoy the rest of Christmas and have a good 2011.

Linda

American Croziers in the news

Marilyn Karlson (granddaughter of Mary Crozier Bryson who emigrated from Moorfield in 1900) recently sent me some transcriptions from US newspapers relating to Mary Crozier's brothers, Robert (emigrated 1900) and Jim (emigrated 1887).

1) From The Reporter Dispatch [White Plains, New York] Sunday, 2 November 1953.

"Croziers Mark Two Anniversaries at Open House":

   

         The 50th wedding anniversary of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Crozier and

    the eighty-second birthday of Mr. Crozier were celebrated Saturday with

    an open house for 175 guests at their home, 33 Merritt Avenue.

         The couple were married in Brooklyn on Nov. 4, 1903.  Mrs. Crozier, the former

    Mary Ann Byers, is eighty-five years old.  They came to White Plains in 1920 and Mr.

    Crozier established the Crozier Tile Company which he still operates with his son, Robert

    Crozier Jr. of the home address.

         They have two other sons, William A. Crozier of the home address, who is chief of the

    White Plains Volunteer Fire Department, and John Crozier of 136 Clinton Street, a

    lieutenant in the White Plains Fire Department.   There are two grandsons.

2) From the Brooklyn Eagle 10 October 1899, p. 7.

  CENTRAL ISLIP

    At the annual election of the Central Islip Improvement Association held in Guild Hall last night the following officers were elected: President, William T. Stokes; vice president, Frank J. Fellows; secretary, Frank T. Kelly; treasurer, James J. Crozier.  Improvements in the cycle path were suggested and will receive prompt attention.
 

    

3) From the Brooklyn Eagle 23 May 1900, p. 13. (Marilyn's comments in italics)

OFFICERS ELECTED

    Patchogue Club, Patchogue--President, Frank Gutridge; vice president, Henry K. Roe; secretary, James R. Ketcham; treasurer, N. McBride; directors, John A. Potter, Dr. A.  H. Terry,Dr. M. H. Overton, Edwin Johan Knecht, J. J. Kirkpatrick and Frank N??uet.

     Yaphank Presbyterian Sunday school--superintendent, Dr. G. H. Sweezey, who also acts as secretary and treasurer; assistant superintendent, Roswell Davis; librarians, Raymond Edwards and Van Rensselaer Sweezey.

    Forward Chapter, Epworth League, Central Islip--The Rev. Herbert E. Marsland, president; John H. Marshall, first vice president; Mrs. Bessie Cornell, second vice president, James J. Crozier, third vice president; Mrs. H. E. Marsbrad, fourth vice president; C. W. Leach, secretary; P. R. Hubbs, treasurer; Hiss Grace Hubbs, organist. 

(The Epworth League was an organization of the Methodist church at large, not just in Central Islip, to provide religious education for the youth of the church.  The organist, Miss Grace Hubbs, last mentioned, must be related to the Hubbs who played the organ at the Methodist church in Central Islip the last time my mother and grandmother attended, around 1966.  I believe that the service was for the dedication of the new church building across the street from the old one.  Grandma (Mary Crozier) was mentioned as being the oldest member of the church.  My mother in a letter said that Ray (I believe) Hubbs was the organist, and she seemed to think that I would remember how loud his playing was.  (I don't.)  Whatever the relation Ray and Grace may have had to each other, I often heard my grandmother talk about the Hubbs family.)

3) From Suffolk County News [Sayville] 16 April 1915, no page given. 

  HIGH COST O' RUNNING

                                                                        

  Certificates of Expenses Filed
  by the Candidates

  BOTH WINNERS AND LOSERS
Cigars and "Refreshments" as usual 
Cut a Big Figure in the Outlay of the  
Men Who Contended for the Offices
in the Recent Elections.

    The several candidates at the recent spring election for Town offices are now filing their certificates of expenditures with the Town Clerk.  Those who have already done so and the amounts expended are as follows:
    John Westbeke, Republican candidate for Supervisor (elected,) received nothing in contributions toward his campaign and spent these amount Printing, $84.25; traveling expenses, $100; transportation, $75; telephone, $10; dinners, $25; total $293.25.
.   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .
[After this entry the totals dwindle from nothing contributed, nothing spent or a small amount to significantly less than half of that first entry.  Most of the entries are small change.}

    James J. Crozier, Republican candidate for Trustee of Town Lands (elected,) received nothing and spent: Printing, $2.50; meeting expenses, $1.00; total, $3.50.

[There is a total of ten entries above Uncle Jim's and eleven below his, but it is clear that more were left out in the photocopying.}

4) From Suffolk County News [Sayville] 27 March 1914, p. 3.

ISLIP

    James J. Crozier was quite badly hurt several days ago while trimming grape vines.  In falling he grasped a chicken wire to save himself and severely lacerated one of his hands and wrenched his side so that he has been confined to his home. 

[Uncle Jim retired the same year he had the accident mentioned in the last article and the year before he ran for office.  I do not know how connected those three events were. ]

Marilyn also posted me a newspaper clipping from The Central Islip News of September 11, 1952 some time ago showing a family group photograph of Mary and William Bryson's Golden Wedding Anniversary celebration. She identified most of the people. Starting with the woman on the left at the very front and moving clockwise they are: Mrs Meta Heines, 3 unknown women, Mary Crozier Bryson (immediately to the left of the flowers), William Bryson, Robert Crozier, Annie Byers Crozier (Robert's wife), Margaret McConnell Crozier (wife of Thomas Crozier), Thomas Crozier, unknown woman but possibly Signe, second wife of Jim Crozier.

The text below the picture reads: 

Pictured above is Mr. and Mrs. William Bryson of Suffolk Avenue, one of the grand old couples of Central Islip, who celebrated their 50th Wedding Anniversary last Saturday. Fifty-six persons were on hand to join in the happy festivities. Mr. and Mrs. Bryson are well known in the community being one of the oldest residents of town.

Joe Crozier, Dromore blacksmith

I was doing one of those aimless Google searches when I came across this photo, supposedly taken around 1950, of Joe Crozier, the Dromore Blacksmith.

 I got excited because at first I thought it was the Joseph of the emigrant generation. He had gone to America and stayed a while but then came back to Ireland and settled, first of all in Meenagowan and later at Aghadara. So far nobody has come up with a photo of him.
But although the quality of this picture isn't good I think this man is too young. That Joe Crozier was born in 1874 so in 1950 he would have been 76 years old. I think it must be his son, also Joseph, who was born in 1914 and did work as a blacksmith in Dromore. I found the picture by scrolling through this website where I also found this photo of his forge, last working in the 1980s and now demolished.

As always, further information and comments are welcome.

.

Alternative Origins

In my last post I described some of the activities of the Border Reivers, including some Croziers. So were the Moorfield Croziers descended from these scoundrels? Well, it is possible. The accession of James VI of Scotland to the English throne (as James I) in 1603 marked the beginning of the end of the Reiver era. James cracked down hard on the lawlessness along the English-Scottish border and many outlaws escaped the hangman's rope by going to Ulster and settling there. This accounts for the frequency with which Reiver surnames occur in many parts of Ulster. In Fermanagh, for example, we find many Armstrongs, Elliotts, Johnstons, Grahams and Hendersons, all common Reiver surnames.

But there is another theory for the origins of the Ulster Croziers. I have taken a certain interest in Francis Crozier, the 19th Century Royal Navy Captain who was the second-in-command on Sir John Franklin's ill-fated expedition to the Canadian Arctic in search of the North West Passage. Captain Crozier came from Banbridge in Co Down but his earlier ancestry, according to Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Crozier provides some tantalising clues. He was supposedly descended from a Cavalry Officer, a Captain John Crozier, who came to Ireland in the 1630s with Sir Thomas Wentworth, later the Earl of Strafford and settled here. He had two sons, William, who went to Co Down and was the ancestor of Francis Crozier, and John, who settled in Fermanagh and "had lands in Fermanagh at Coa, Canvantillicormac and Ardvarny and in Tyrone at Moorfields (sic) and founded the Fermanagh Branch of the Family".

I haven't been able as yet to find the original source of this information but can the mention of Moorfield be a coincidence? Even if there isn't a direct line from our family back to John Crozier we can speculate about other possibilities. Did John Crozier have relatives who needed to get out of the Borders fast? Did they approach the Cavalry Officer's son for some land where they could settle and farm? Or were John Crozier's lands subsequently split up among his direct descendants? There's plenty of hunting still to do.

The Cavalry Officer's origins are interesting too. Wikipedia reports that "he came from came from Redworth Hall, County Durham and his family had been there since 1407". There is still a Redworth Hall; it is now a rather splendid hotel. When we called there while we were in the north of England on holiday this summer I picked up a leaflet outlining the history of the building...

REDWORTH HALL, COUNTY DURHAM

A Potted History

Redworth Hall was built as a family home in 1693 for George and Eleanor Crosier and their five daughters, and was then know simply as Redworth House, though still a fine 18 room building in its own grounds.

In the same year their youngest daughter Jane, married Edward Surtees of Mainsforth, a Northumberland family who owned land and estates across Durham and Northumberland, including Redworth village, and whose ancestry can be dated back to 950AD: in fact, at the Battle of Crecy in 1346, an ancestor of Edward Surtees named Sir Thomas Surteys, saved the life of the then Prince of Wales and was awarded the honour of the Feathers, which why you can see the Prince of Wales feathers depicted in the stonework and stained glass around the house today. Also depicted in the stained glass of Redworth Hall are the coat of arms commissioned to celebrate the nuptials of Jane and Edward, that of Surtees impaling Corsier. The couple made their home in Northumberland.

Their furst son and heir, Robert Surtees, at the age of 50, married Dorothy Lambton aged 22, heiress to the vast Hardwick estates in County Durham. This union was much against his father Edward’s wishes, so much so that Edward offered his son £2,000 to marry any woman but her, but to no effect, and only thirteen days after the marriage took place, Edward disinherited Robert and all future heirs.

In 1744, using his wife’s money, Robert bought and greatly added to Redworth House, the former home of his maternal grandparents, Goerge and Eleanor Crosier.

Another great alliance came about in 1769, when Robert arranged for his 17 year-old daughter Jane to marry his brother Crosier’s son (also called Crosier), in order to cement the family line, the marriage taking place on 12 September in Heighington Parish Church. Unfortunately for Jane, her husband Crosier was by all accounts, an extremely unpleasant man, and although she bore him 11 children in 16 years, theirs was a loveless marriage with Crosier gradually taking control of all her land and estates.

In 1800 it was reported that Jane had left Redworth Hall and the area without a trace, and within a few months Crosier also left to live with his mistress in Hamsterley. Crosier died in December 1803 aftern an evening’s drinking and dining at the Duke of Cleveland’s home in Raby Castel, he was found frozen to death at Linburn Beck after being thrown from his horse. His second son, another Robert Surtees and holder of the title of High Sheriff of Durham took over the running of Redworth House.

1863 saw the turn of Henry Edward Surtees (MP for Hertfordshire) to inherit Redworth House and it was he who added the Jacobean style spiral stone staircase and magnificent galleried Baronial Hall in the early1890s and it is also from this point that the house and its estates became known as Redworth Hall. On Henry’s death in 1895, his son Major Henry Siward Daliol Surtees of the 2^nd Lifeguards inherited the estates. During his distinguished career, the Major served with the Household Cavalry in the Boer War and was attached to the Royal Garrison Artillery during the First World War. In 1929 he also took up office as the High Sheriff of Durham. Sadly, the Elizabethan manor house and its 25 acres of gardens and woodland was sold to the local County Council in 1950, by the Major, for tax reasons, after 250 years in the Surtees family.

POINTS OF INTEREST

·      Redworth House was the site of many battles in the Civil War, between the Royalist Garrison at Middridge Grange (approx. 2 miles to the east of Redworth) and the Parliamentary Roundhead trrps

·      Prince Alexander Yourievsky of Russia, grandson to the murdered Alexander, fled his homeland during the First World War and spent many years living within the Hall and the village.

·      1855-1958 – Nine members of the Surtees family held the office of the High Sheriff of Durham.

·      1958-1966 – Redworth Hall was a school for physically handicapped boys.

·      May 1966 – Redworth Hall became a Residential School for “naughty boys”.

·      1987 – The Hall converts to a 17 room private hotel.

·      1997 – Scottish Highland Hotels PLC buy Redworth Hall Hotel.

·      1999 – Paramount Group of Hotels become the new (and present) owners and continue the investment with a £1 million refurbishment.

·      The drive on the approach to Redworth Hall is lined with lime trees.

·      Trees to the left of the drive are red horse chestnut, horse chestnut, mulberry and a rather special Handkerchief tree planted in 1930 and which oly blomed for the first time in 1970, then again in 1991; so call because the white bracts of flowers give the appearance of handkerchiefs hanging from the branches.

·      To the right of the drive are elderberry, holly and copper beech, with the lawns divided by yew hedges and cherry laurel.

·      In the 1930’s, Major Surtees had the summerhouse built for his wife, and also in that devaie the lower lawn was marked out as a chess board, with servants dressed in black and white and used as “live” chess pieces.

·      The large, low hanging sycamore tree which dominates the left hand side of the lawn as you look down from the Hall is believed to be about 260 years old.

THE HALL BOASTS AT LEAST TWO GHOSTS

The first is that of a woman who felt the need to throw herself from the top of the Jacobean Tower when her lover jilted her. She is said to walk the rooms at the front of the house, particularly the bedrooms.

Secondly, the laughter and crying of young children is sometimes heard in the area of the Great Hall. One of the Surtees many children was “ill of the mind” and their days and nights were spent chained to one of the Great Hall fireplaces.

 

Disgraceful Histories

For this post I'm digging back further into history - or even myth - but the story starts just yesterday when I was chatting with a new Facebook friend. I was telling her about my blogging activity and when she learned that I was a Crozier she remarked that my surname, like her own, Hall, came from the Borders (the area around the English Scottish border, that is). They numbered among the Border Reiver families who raided and thieved along the border particularly in the 15th and 16th Centuries. Other prominent names included Forster, Hume, Kerr, Charlton, Scott, Johnstone, Maxwell, Eliot and the mighty Armstrongs.

All this brought to mind the Border ballad, "The Death of Parcy Reed", which involves both Croziers and Halls. The ballad tells the story of how the Croziers were at feud with Parcy Reed, the head of the Reed family. They persuaded another family, the Halls, to invite Parcy Reed out for a day's hunting and lure him into a trap laid by the Croziers. When the hunting party reached a desolate spot high on the border along came a party of Croziers. The Halls fled and poor old Parcy Reed was murdered.
Interestingly, it was the Halls' reputation that suffered most as a result of this occurrence. The local population and the balladeer both seem to have taken at least as dim a view of treachery as of murder and the Halls were branded 'the false Halls'.

Is the ballad based on a real event? It's not certain but in the context of border history at the time the story is at least plausible. There are a number of versions of the ballad - here's a link to one of them.

If this has whetted your appetite for more tales of murder, adventure and derring-do from the Borders you could do no better than read George MacDonald Fraser's The Steel Bonnets, HarperCollins; New Ed edition (9 Mar 1989).

So, are the Moorfield Croziers descended from bandits and murderers? To find out more read the next exciting episode!

Willie Crozier

Arthur and I were in Enniskillen last weekend visiting Jean and Robert McFarland. I came across a copy of Come Listen a While, a book about Trillick written by Michael McCaughey, published in 1992. We all knew the McCaughey family well although Michael served on the Garda (the Irish Police) for many years so we didn't see him as much as his other brothers and sisters.

Anyway, leafing through the book I came across a section about our grandfather, Willie, and our father Jim so I'm transcribing it here with my comments and corrections in brackets.

 When you remember that in 1900 Tyrone had 25,000 horses and 1,500 asses, you can imagine how busy the blacksmiths was and Crozier's forge in the town had a regular visit from every farmer in the locality. Willie Crozier had emigrated to America in the 1900's as did seven other members of his family and returned to Ireland on his honeymoon in 1912. It turned out to be one of the longest honeymoons on record for Willie stayed at home and established Crozier's forge, a popular calling place for many generations of people in this locality. His anvil, still well preserved, (I now have it here in Randalstown) cost £5 from Booth brothers in Dublin and he was the first blacksmith in this area to have a coiling machine for cart wheels. In addition to shoeing horses, often for more than twelve hours a day, he also made spades, shovels, pick-axes, pitch-forks, scythes, bill-hooks, harrows, gates and drill ploughs. As a new machine or implement came on the market, he was able to apply his natural mechanical brain to repairing it or making parts for it and when tractors came into use, he was quickly able to repair these also. At the highly skilled job of shoeing cart wheels, he was the best around and was never too hard to pay, charging as little as two shillings for putting on a set of horse shoes up to the 1914-18 war years. He was something of an all-rounder in that he could dislodge potatoes or turnips from an animal's throat by means of a specially designed rubber tube and he regularly pulled teeth by tying the tooth to the anvil by means of a hemp cord and rushing to the anvil with a red hot iron, forcing the patient to jump backwards - minus the tooth. The water in his iron trough could cure warts, ringworm and sprains and Willie was also a fine musician, having bought a second-hand Stradivarius violin in New York which had been made in 1730. (We had the violin assessed some years ago and were disappointed but not surprised to learn that it was one of many fakes produced around the end of the 19th century - which, I suppose, still makes it an antique. The violin is now in Winnipeg with my Uncle Bill.)

Willie's son Jim displayed his father's mechanical versatility, being the first man to sell and repair bicycles in the town, had the first charger for the wet batteries used in the old radios, repaired old Coleman petrol lamps and Tilly oil lamps and was a keen photographer. He inherited his father's musical talents, playing in Trillick Brass Band, which was for many years one of the best bands in Tyrone or Fermanagh. (I don't think this is right. Daddy played the cornet in Ballyreagh Silver Band for over forty years but I never heard of Trillick Brass Band.) Jim became our first TV dealer and carried on a most successful TV business until his retirement a few years ago. Jim has the proud distinction of being our senior citizen, residing at Crozier's corner for close on eighty years and giving many a helping hand and friendly smile to passing generations through those changing years. You can gather just how much things have changed when you hear Jim recall that in 1915 an 8-stone pack of flour and a 2-cwt bag of Indian Meal (corn meal) cost £1, 2 bottles of Bushmills cost 9 shillings, 2 bottles of claret cost three shillings and four pence and 1 dozen ale cost three shillings and six pence! (I'm amazed to find my father would have remembered the price of claret from when he was 2 years old!)

Some notes from Alan

Some things I noted down years ago while working on other things at the Public Records Office in Belfast. These documents name Croziers in Moorfield without saying anything about how they are related to each other.

Griffith’s Valuation from 1860 lists Robert Crozier in Moorfield, leasing a house, offices and land (24 acres) from James Lendrum. That’s the uncle of the James J. Crozier who wrote the family history.

The Tithe Applotment Book from 1826 has two properties held by Croziers. There’s a Joseph Crozier with 6 acres who must be James J. Crozier’s grandfather. And there’s a Robert Crozier with 11 acres.

One document (D.1834/1/61) is a Lendrum lease to Robert Crozier, Moorfield, 28 Sept 1811.

T.2735 is a Lendrum map showing Richard Crozier with 21 acres in the corner of Moorfield adjoining Girgadis, Keenogue and Drumbinnion, on the south side of a road (to Aughnacloy!) opposite a junction with a road leading to a river which separates Moorfield from Knocknagar and Drumbinnion.

A note on the other side says:
1798 April 27th. Richd Crozier’s part of Moorfield which I surveyed contains 23 acres.
May 19th 1803. Wm and Thos Crozier, Bog, 2 roods, 20 perches.

D.590/116 is the will of John Crozier of Moorfield otherwise Cavantilliecormack in the Co. of Fermanagh, 18 August 1764.

The Kilskeery Parish Records available on microfilm in PRONI cover the years 1772-1832 approx. They include the following baptisms for the children of Joseph and Anne Elkin Crozier of Moorfield.

13 Aug1823 - James
28 Feb 1825 - Robert
28 Jan 1827 - Elizabeth
20 Mar 1829 - Mary
19 July 1831 - Christian (this was actually a girl called Christine

Joseph, who married Catherine Donald (or Donnell, or O'Donnell) was born in 1837.

Some of the children of Hugh and Jane Henderson Donnell or O'Donnell of Cabragh also appear as follows:

24 April 1831 - James
2 Mar 1834 - Jane
6 Nov 1825 - Isabella
7 Aug 1828 - Mary

Catherine was born in 1845.

The marriage of Hugh O'Donnell and Jane Henderson is recorded on 27 October 1821.

The records of Derryvullan Parish (Irvinestown) record the births of the following children of Joseph Crozier and Catherine Donnell:
 31 October 1869 - Anne Jane
16 Feb 1874 - Joseph

New stuff

I've put in a few links to various online records plus a new page about skeletons!

A basic family history

Welcome to this new blog created for descendants of the Crozier family of Moorfield, Trillick.

As a starting point you can find some basic information on the family history and we'll see what more we can add to it, moving forward and backwards in time.