WILLIAM VAN HORN & ELIZABETH McLEAN

To end the four generations that begat Clifford Roy Wilmot we have William Van Horn & Elizabeth McLean. William came from Ohio and Elizabeth for all intents and purposes was a local girl, perhaps the daughter of a United Empire Loyalist, but that hasn't been proven to the best of my knowledge.

It is unknown who Elizabeth's parents are. From census records and her tombstone she was born in 1810 in Upper Canada. There were a lot of McLean's in the Pittsburgh area and Sam Vanhorne says her father's name was Joseph McLean (Lilac's and Limestone talks about a Joseph McLean who owned land in Pittsburgh in the right time frame to be her father) but no mention of her mother. According to Sam Vanhorne, Joseph McLean was a United Empire Loyalist, and he had another daughter (Elizabeth's sister) who married a man with the last name of Stewart and they had a son named Joseph Stewart. I'm trying to prove this but with not much luck. If Elizabeth was the eldest in her family, and her father was Joseph McLean, her mother could be Mary Anderson and Joseph McLean & Mary Anderson were married on 19 Aug 1809 by the Church of England Reverend, John Stuart, in Kingston.

The ancestry of William Van Horn is documented in the LDS Ancestral File and Pedigree Resource file. More than one person submitted information on this family line back to Holland. I have not checked the sources for any of this; for some reason it feels like they don't belong to me and I have kept my focus on the Ontario relatives.

A descendant of William Van Horn named Sam Vanhorne wrote an article for the Pittsburgh Historical Society about 1978 about the Van Horn family. He said that William came to Canada in the early 1820's with his brothers Thomas & Smith. Interesting to me is that the submitters on the Pedigree Resource File have a brother as Thomas, but never is there a brother named Smith. Apparently Smith settled in Prince Edward County around Demorestville, Upper Canada. Demorestville is about 50 miles East of Kingston south of the Bay of Quinte. In 1978, Smith Van Horn's land was still occupied by one of his descendants.

According to Sam Vanhorne, Thomas moved to Whitby, Upper Canada and he was a blacksmith. I believe Thomas was 50 years old and living with with William on the 1861 census and he doesn't seem to have his own family with him. Sam Vanhorne said that he met one of Thomas from Witby's descendants in WWII. William's son, Thomas went to work with Uncle Thomas in Whitby.

The family chronology is as follows:

22 Jun 1826: William Van Horn and Elizabeth McLean were married at St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church, Kingston (LDS film 1307512). He was 24 and she was only 16. Their marriage entry says they were both from Pittsburgh. This was the first piece of information that I found for my direct line ancestor and I was very excited to have it. Unfortunately the marriage record does not say who their parents were, but the witnesses were William McLean & Basil D. Rorison, so perhaps her brother or a cousin was a witness. In the book Lilacs and Limestone it says the only bridge get into Kingston City was at Kingston Mills and the bridge across the the Cataraqui River from the Front Road (Highway #2 today) wasn't built until 1829 so they would have gone to Kingston Mills to get over the river or taken a ferry from Barriefield to Kingston.

Also interesting is after they got married in the Presbyterian church (and I think this was her church since there were a lot of McLean names in the register) there are not any entries for the baptism of their children at the same church. The first eight of their children were baptized on 29 January 1842 and then Joseph on 18 Apr 1844 by Reverend S. Miles in a Pittsburgh Methodist Church. The children with the "abt" birth-dates come from census records and there is no known baptism record.

• 25 May 1827 Alexander Vanhorn
  
• 26 Jan 1829 George Vanhorn
  
• 13 Jan 1831 Mary Vanhorn
  
• 27 Feb 1833 Citney Vanhorn
  
• 20 Dec 1834 Elizabeth Vanhorn
  
• 29 Mar 1837 Sarah Vanhorn
  
• 29 Jun 1839 Jane Vanhorn
  
• 15 Jul 1841 William Vanhorn
  
• 14 Jul 1843 Jospeh McLean Vanhorn
  
• abt 1845 John Vanhorn
• abt 1847 Margaret Vanhorn
• abt 1849 Thomas Vanhorn
• abt 1851 Charles Gamble Vanhorn
• abt 1855 Abigail Vanhorn

Other events are as follows:

1831 Concession 3 Lot 15 deeded to William Van Horn

1836 William bought a portion of Concession 3 Lot 16

abt 1853 Alexander maybe married a woman named Agnes. Their children were

• 9 Feb 1855 Mary Elizabeth Vanhorn
  
• 9 Sep 1856 Agnes Hunter Vanhorn
  
• 18 Apr 1859 William Alexander Vanhorn
  
• 27 Oct 1860 George Vanhorn
• 31 Mar 1867 Samuel Van Horn

The 1861 census shows Alexander & Agnes (b. abt 1835) and their four children living together. She is dead or left him before the 1871 census and he is a widow. Strange to me is Sam Vanhorne (who is a direct descendant of Alexander) said that Alexander was married to Nancy McAdoo. On Samuel's marriage registration to Alison Grice, he said that his mother was Nancy McAdoo, but on the baptism records at the Anglican Diocese in Kingston, all of the children's mother's name is Agnes. Being that the second daughter had HUNTER as her middle name, I checked the Pittsburgh 1851 census for an Agnes Hunter and there is one that matches the year born but your guess is as good as mine if this is the Agnes Hunter who married Alexander Vanhorn. My original guess was Alexander had 4 children with Agnes, she died between 1861-1865 (large gap in the birth of the children) but then Alexander remarried Nancy McAdoo and they had Samuel in 1867, then Nancy died before the 1871 census. This isn't provable since Samuel's baptism entry shows Agnes, not Nancy, as his mother and it's all confusing mess. Nancy died on 4 May 1869 and is buried in the Cataraqui Cemetery with Alexander. It's unknown when Agnes died or where she is buried.

1854 William transfered land to son Alex & George

12 Feb 1855 George Vanhorn dies and is buried in the Milton Cemetery. It appears he was never married.

8 Nov 1855 Citney Ann marries Henry Graves. They have their own post.

before 1861 Mary Vanhorn is not with the family on the 1861 census. I assume she was married to ____ Smith before the census.

before 1861 Elizabeth Vanhorn is not with the family on the 1861 census. I assume she was married to John McFadden before the census and the man William Vanhorn McFadden was probably their child.

2 Nov 1867 William married Harriet Beaton and had five children:

• abt 1869 Donald Beaton Vanhorn
  
• abt 1872 Ann E Vanhorn
  
• abt 1874 William A Vanhorn
  
• abt 1876 Charles Vanhorn
  
• 6 Jun 1877 Bella Jane Vanhorn
  
• 4 Aug 1879 George Henry Vanhorn
• 12 Sep 1881 Milford Andrews Vanhorn
  
• 13 Jun 1884 Walter Ernest Vanhorn

Funny to me is William registered the births of three of his children, Bella, George & Milford in January 1882 when they were born many years prior. Apparently some of William's children all moved west about the year 1900 and some even resided in the Lethbridge area (perhaps they associated with our Wilmot/Graves relatives from Pittsburgh while in Lethbidge).

23 Aug 1868 Margaret Vanhorn marries Richard or Robert Patterson. They had at least two children.

• 11 Mar 1869 Citney Jane Patterson
• 7 Jul 1872 Helen Agusta Patterson
  

17 Sep 1872 Alexander marries for the 2nd or 3rd time to Mary Ann Beaton. They had one daughter

• abt 1874 Sarah Jane Van Horn who died on 7 Oct 1898
  

24 Dec 1872 Thomas marries Mary Mission in Port Hope, Northumberland. They have at least seven children

• 26 Oct 1873 Citney Emma Vanhorn
• 9 Mar 1876 Carrie Vanhorn
• 20 Apr 1878 Francis W Vanhorn
• abt 1880 Charles Vanhorn
• abt 1882 Edith Vanhorn
• 17 Sep 1882 Ethel Vanhorn (is Ethel & Edith the same person or possibly twins?)
• 14 Feb 1884 L. George Vanhorn
• 21 Sep 1888 Russel R. Vanhorn
  

1876 William transfered land to son John

21 Aug 1878 Margaret Vanhorn Patterson dies.

1878 Vanhorn house burns down on C3 L15

1879 Vanhorn house rebuilt and was still standing in 1978

1880 Joseph moved to Ohio

1882 John moved to Detroit

1884 Father William transferred the land to his son, Charlie

27 May 1887 father William dies and is buried in the Milton Cemetery


20 Nov 1887 Mary Ann (Beaton) Vanhorn dies and is buried in the Cataraqui Cemetery with Nancy McAdoo (other wife of Alexander Vanhorn)

3 Nov 1889 Harriet (Beaton) Vanhorn dies and is buried in the Milton Cemetery

abt 1889 Charles marries Helena or Lena Patteron. They have one daughter before moving to Waterton, New York

• 10 Apr 1891 Mabel Irene Vanhorn
  

21 Jan 1891 Henry Graves dies and is buried in the Cataraqui Cemetery

1893 Mary (Mission) Vanhorn died

19 Jul 1900 Sarah Vanhorn dies and is buried in the Milton Cemetery. It appears she did not marry

1901 Jane Vanhorn dies and is buried in the Milton Cemetery. It appears she did not marry

15 Jul 1901 Elizabeth McLean Vanhorn dies and is buried in the Milton Cemetery


19 Sep 1910 Citney Vanhorn Graves dies and is buried in the Cataraqui Cemetery

1914 Alexander dies and is buried in the Cataraqui Cemetery

30 Oct 1914 William (who married Harriet) dies and is buried in the Milton Cemetery

13 Oct 1915 Thomas Vanhorn died

1916 Abigal Vanhorn dies and is buried in the Milton Cemetery

13 Apr 1830 Robert Henry Patterson dies

William and Elizabeth in 28 years had 14 children. I imagine that life in Pittsburgh was hard for them.