User:RWIR/Thomas Westbrook Waldron (Canadian Immigrant)

Thomas Westbrook Waldron was the first of his New Hampshire family to immigrate to Canada and was an early resident and farmer of Charlotte County, New Brunswick. He was the senior grandson of his namesake grandfather, yet moved away from his first homeland, where his family had been prominent. Among his descendants are hundreds of Canadians, inhabiting all regions of Canada. Some descendants are citizens of the United States, Australia or the Philippines.

Birth and family
Thomas Westbrook Waldron, bearing the same name as his grandfather and great great grandfather, was born 18 November 1785   in New Hampshire, United States. Probably born in Dover, New Hampshire, he "went to Portsmouth, N.H. in 1803, married, and had a child who died there; then moved into Maine, and his sister has not heard of him since about 1815."

New Brunswick and return to New Hampshire to marry and to New Brunswick
Though he first entered New Brunswick in 1807, Waldron returned to his native New Hampshire to marry. He married in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, 5 May 1808 to Elizabeth Nutter, and as we saw above, they had a child in Portsmouth, before moving to "Maine" whose border with Charlotte County, New Brunswick was long disputed. Elizabeth's census record confirms she first arrived in New Brunswick in 1811.

A farmer in Charlotte County, New Brunswick
Thomas' uncle Daniel Waldron had inherited the bulk of the Waldron estate in Dover, largely passing over Thomas' father, William. William's more modest Dover, New Hampshire inheritance was reduced by the needs of his widow and family. But Thomas was able to look for land in Charlotte County, New Brunswick. "Quite a considerable number of US individuals and families from New England arrived here in the period between about 1790 and the 1830s. There were attractions of timber, of jobs in the shipbuilding industry and other trades, and also relatively stable and low-cost land." "As soon as the American Revolutionary war was over, the international border meant little, and individuals and families moved freely across it."

The 1823 Charlotte County, New Brunswick, assessment list gives his name as merely Thomas Waldron. His name appears 85th out of 146 men or landowners who were assessed taxes that year. (Like several others, he was assessed two shillings, 10 pence).

In 1831 Thos Waldron had 100 acres of land, and £40 in personal property. His annual income was £10. He was assessed 1 shilling and 10 pence in taxes.

Legacy




He died about 1867 in New Brunswick, Canada. Among the hundreds of descendants of Thomas Westbrook Waldron and Elizabeth Nutter were four who carried his name in full. At least two descendants carried "Thomas Westbrook Waldron" and "Westbrook" as a middle name well into the twentieth century.

Some other descendants

 * Jayson Thiessen, Director, Animator
 * Stephanie Marinus, "Miss Alberta 2010", "Miss Photogenic" within Miss Universe Canada 2010 pageant, 2nd Runner Up, Miss Calgary
 * Colinda Cardinal, northern Canadian Metis artist and illustrator
 * Wilmot Colin (Bill) Waldron, a namesake of Thompson-Waldron range, Tweedsmuir Park, British Columbia
 * Mildred (Hitchcock) Clarke, Deaconess and Poet