William and Jane Woods
William was born Abt. 1800 in Maryland, USA and died sometime between 1871 and 1881 in Collingwood, Simcoe, Ontario
Farm - Concession 1, 1st part of Lot 20 – Sullivan Township, Grey County, Ontario, Canada
William Woods name appears as part of a list of the earliest settlers noted in the History of Sullivan Township on page 8 as settling on Con 1, Part 1 of Lot 20 on 20 June 1842. He is one of only three black pioneer settlers on this list.
According to his 19 Feb 1842 Naturalization Registration. William arrived in Ontario during the summer of 1834 and settled in the Toronto area. He came to the newly surveyed Sullivan Township in Grey County with two of his friends from Toronto, William Gordon and Henry Miller who were formerly enslaved persons from Maryland, and settled close to them on the west side of the Garafraxa Road, known today as Highway 6, by todays Negro Creek.
The Woods Farm was located on Con 1, Part 1 of Lot 20 on a 50-acre plot of land on the west of today’s Highway 6, just north of where Negro Creek crosses under the highway. By the time the 1851 census of Canada was taken, William had 12 acres of property cultivated or planted. That year the farm had produced 3 acres of wheat, 1 acre of potatoes, and 4 tons of hay plus 100 lbs of maple sugar and 25 yards of flannel from his sheep. He also had a visitor from Artemesia Township named Philemon Workman. Philemon is found visiting a few farms in the Negro Creek area during the taking of that census in January of 1852.
It took ten years after settling in the Negro Creek area of Sullivan Township for William to finally receive the crown patent for his lot on 5 July 1852. He then sold the whole parcel to William Blatchford a local blacksmith and landowner for £20 five months later on 1 Dec 1852. We believe that William continued to work his farm as a rental for a few more years. Then on 1 Sept 1858 Blatchford sold a 1-acre part of the lot to Robert Gillies a wealthy merchant and landowner for £50. For the next few years, land rights went back and forth between Gillies and Blatchford and by 1861 census, the Woods family had left the area.
By January 1861 when this census was enumerated, and after almost twenty years of working to build a productive farm near the shores of Negro Creek, William, had moved south and settled in the port town of Collingwood in Simcoe County.
The Woods family is found on page 16 of Enumeration District No. 1 East Half of the Town of Collingwood, where 33 out of the 50 persons listed are Indigenous people and 3 persons (William, Jane, and Mary Woods) are noted as “color’d persons”. There are no housing types noted for either the Woods’ or for the Indigenous persons that are listed on this page of the census. There are only two families on this page who are white. The Banister family plus a lodger are living in a one-story log house together, and the nine-member Anderson family is living in a two-story frame house. Since the Woods have no housing noted as being built, it leads me to believe that they most probably have just settled in the area and did not have the opportunity to begin erecting a properly structured home for themselves. A reminder that this census was taken during the winter in January 1861.
The paper trail runs out for William after the 1871 Canadian Census where he and his wife were found still residing in Collingwood however, without their daughter Mary. They are no longer surrounded by Indigenous peoples. The people who are listed in their neighbourhood on pages 98, 99, and 100 of this census are now mostly British or European immigrants doing a variety of jobs from editor running a boarding house to freight clerk, telegraph operator, marble polisher, labourers, to ship carpenters, carriage makers and a general agent plus a mariner. From the occupations of William’s neighbours, I believe he and Jane had relocated to a more centralized part of the town and could very well have been close to the train station and or shipping docks due to the type of occupations that their neighbours held.
We can only surmise that William may have died sometime after the 1871 census but before the 1881 census where Jane is listed as a widow.
Written and researched by Nancy M. Lee
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www.bac-lac.gc.ca- Naturalization Records, 1828-1850 – Upper Canada and Canada West
Year: 1851; Census Place: Grey, Canada West (Ontario); Schedule: A; Roll: C-11723; Page: 23; Line: 33
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CSVG-GSNL-J?i=11&cat=330982
Library and Archives Canada; Ottawa, Ontario, Canada; Census Returns For 1861; Roll: C-1072
Year: 1871; Census Place: Collingwood, Simcoe, Ontario; Roll: C-9962; Page: 99; Family No: 342
Additional Sources:
Re: Jane Woods
Library and Archives Canada - Canada Census, 1881, database with images FamilySearch, page 24 & 25, microfilm page # 108-109
Canada, Ontario Deaths, 1869-1937 and Overseas Deaths, 1939-1947. Family Search microfilm no. 10952-17633- image 582 of 861
Year: 1891; Census Place: Sarawak, Grey North, Ontario, Canada; Roll: T-6339; Family No: 95
Archives of Ontario; Toronto, Ontario, Canada; Collection: MS935; Reel: 74, microfilm page10
Jane Woods
Jane was born Abt. 1810 in USA and Died on 16 May 1883 in Collingwood, Simcoe, Ontario
Little is known about Jane, the wife of William Woods other than she was born somewhere in the United States around 1810-11. We meet Jane for the first time in historical documentation in the 1851 census residing with her husband William and young daughter Mary on their farm Con1, Lot 20 in Sullivan Township. When the 1861 census was taken, the family had left Sullivan Township and travelled south to the port town of Collingwood in Simcoe County. Both Jane and William are found in the 1871 census residing in Collingwood however, William is missing by the 1881 census.
At the time of the census taking on 14 Apr 1881 , Jane is still in Collingwood although her age hadn’t improved in ten years. She is found residing with Elizabeth Johnston and her husband Robert Johnston along with a young boy named Jeremiah Woods. It is difficult to tell if Jeremiah is age 8 or he is 58 or 59 years of age, as the number in the age column was crossed out. Although research to date has been unable to verify Jeremiah’s birth or any historical information concerning anyone matching either birth date or background, I believe he may have been the grandson of Jane and William Woods.
Two years after the 1881 census Jane died of old age on 16 May 1883 in Collingwood. They have her age noted as 83 years old, which we think is about ten or twelve years older than she most probably was. Interestingly the informant for her death was Robert Johnston who, as mentioned previously, was residing with her in the 1881 census.
Written and researched by Nancy M. Lee
Mary A. Woods
Mary was born on her father’s farm located on Conc 1, Part 1 of Lot 20 in Sullivan Township. We are first introduced to Mary when she was about five years age in the 1851 Canada Census residing with her parents in the burgeoning community that we now know as Negro Creek.
The family relocated to the outskirts of Collingwood where she is listed as a fifteen year old teenager in the January 1861 Canada Census where her father was noted as working as a labourer.
To date, we have not been able to positively identify Mary A. Woods in historical documents after she left the home of her parents before the taking of the 1871 Canada Census.
We would most welcome any documented historical information on the life of Mary A. Woods daughter of William and Jane Woods former residents of Sullivan Township near Negro Creek and the port town of Collingwood, Ontario.
Written and researched by Nancy M. Lee
