Marguerite “Maggie” MAHOOD was the first child of Eliza Ann BUCK & Sergeant John MAHOOD, Royal Artillery, stationed with the British Army in Ireland. Maggie was born in July 1856, shortly before the outbreak of hostilities in the Second Opium War. Her father shipped out to China before the year’s end and would not return for all almost three years.
Newlyweds, Francois & Marguerite Gracia, initially lived at 13001/2 Stockton Ave, from 1877. Known as Montreal House, it was a three story lodgings and saloon at the north eastern corner of Stockton & Broadway. Francois aka Frank worked for the Hotel, providing furnished rooms by the night, week or month, and Marguerite, aka Maggie, worked as dressmaker while raising their growing family.
Continue reading Montreal HouseTo avoid prohibition, entrepreneur, James S Marchetti (1900-1965) partnered with his brother-in-law, Victor R Delu, to establish Vick’s Place in Tijuana, a restaurant, bar, dance and music hall.
Continue reading Prohibition, what prohibition?This article recounts the dramatic, traumatic, and tragic events leading to the first immigrant to California from the Gracia & Marchetti family. It is remarkable that one man’s life can be so thoroughly documented, placing him as, not only an eye witness, but a participant in historical events.
John Mahood was born 1825, son of Adam Mahood, in Magherally Parish near Banbridge, County Down, in Northern Ireland. The town of Banbridge was the centre of the ‘Linen Homelands’ owing its success to flax and the linen industry. Naturally, John became a weaver.
Into this pastoral setting arrived the Potato Famine 1845-1851 and County Down was hit hardest in 1847.
Ireland had witnessed a massive surge in population from 2.6 to 8.5 million by 1845 when blight struck the staple food of the masses – the potato. Two-fifths of the population were totally dependent on the potato and it was the major food-source of the rest. Between 1845 and 1849, the potato crop failed in three seasons out of four. The result was starvation and the spread of the “road disease” – dysentery, typhus and cholera.
John Henry was the youngest of five siblings, born 2 March 1892 in Tollerton, to Elizabeth Ann Headley and Charles Bainbridge, a platelayer for North Eastern Railways. John Henry was named after his great grandfather John Bainbridge and grandfather Henry Bainbridge.
Unlike his elder siblings in domestic service, John Henry, took an apprenticeship with a clothing and outfitting retailer in York, living with his elder sister’s family, Elizabeth, in Brownlow Street in The Groves neighbourhood.
The 21 year old bachelor, John Henry Bainbridge, married 24 year old spinster, Adelaide Edgar, at St Maurice Parish Church in York, 9 April 1913.
The newly weds settled in the village of Newton on Ouse, 9 miles northwest of York, where John Henry opened a grocery shop on Moor Lane, the main street entering the village, opposite the school.
Elizabeth Ann Headley was born 1863 in Huby, Yorkshire, to parents Isabella Mennell & John Headley, an agricultural laborer. Elizabeth was the sixth of eight siblings, seven of whom survived to adulthood. All four brothers relocated to Shildon, County Durham, to work in the coal mines or railways and her two sisters moved out of the village to raise large families in towns where their husbands held industrial jobs.
Charles Bainbridge was born March 1861 at Sutton Grange, Sutton on the Forest, second child to parents Henry Bainbridge of Tollerton and Jane Scott of Sutton on the Forest.
There is no record of Charles’ baptism so if it occurred, it may have been in the newly built Methodist Chapel opened in 1861 or the later Wesleyan Chapel, erected in 1864.
Jane Scott was born 1828 in Sutton on the Forest to parents John Scott, an agricultural labourer, also from Sutton on the Forest & Anne Taylor, originally from Oulston.
Jane was the ninth of eleven children, all born in Sutton on the Forest, spanning the 17 years between 1813 – 1832. Baptised 27 April 1828, All Hallows’ Parish Church was presumably the venue for all the family baptisms.
Henry Bainbridge was born 1831 in Tollerton, was sixth and youngest child of John Bainbridge & Mary Bainbridge. Raised in Tollerton, Henry followed in his father’s footsteps and aged 18, joined his elder brother Joseph as an agricultural labourer living with, and working for, the Sadler family, farmers in Tollerton.
Complicating matters, there are at least two Bainbridge families in Oulston in the 18th & 19th century. Our family and the family of William Bainbridge (1752-1816), gamekeeper for Newburgh Estate, and father of nine children.
Most of his children shared names with our ancestors, including John, William, Jane, Charles, Henry, etc. Furthermore many remained in Oulston, Easingwold, or York, muddying the waters as we trace our family tree.
